


Action at a Distance

by WanderingWordsmith



Series: Quantum Entanglement [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Lots of Angst, Michelle Jones Needs a Hug, Part 2, Peter Parker Loves Michelle Jones, Post-Infinity War, Spideychelle, The love story we deserved, lots of fluff, quantum entanglement, steamy make outs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2019-07-13 02:21:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 70,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16008269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingWordsmith/pseuds/WanderingWordsmith
Summary: The untold story of Michelle Jones' quest to save the world and how she falls in love with a skinny nerd on the other side of the universe.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back friends! This is part 2 of of my first fan fic ever- Quantum Entanglement. If you haven't read that yet, I would suggest starting there, but if you have, jump right in. It's going to be a wild ride. 
> 
> Enjoy and BE KIND <3
> 
> follow me on insta @spideychelleforever

"In quantum physics, entangled particles remain connected so that actions performed on one affect the other, even when separated by great distances. The phenomenon so riled Albert Einstein he called it "spooky action at a distance."'  
-Karl Tate

 

Shortly after the snap….

 

Everything was black. He was alone in a void. 

“Hello?” He called out hopefully praying that someone would respond.

“Is anybody there?” 

Peter's solitary voice echoed endlessly into the distance and took with it his hope for salvation. 

Only, he was still him. He was still here. Somehow. Somewhere. 

Thanos had snapped him out of existence but here he was….still existing. 

It couldn’t hurt to try one more time.

“Hello?”

*****

“Hello?” The strangely familiar voice echoed through her dream. 

It was him. It was the boy she had heard before he died. How could she still be hearing him? 

Why of all the souls in the universe could she still hear him?

Michelle was aware enough of herself in this mysterious dreamland to know that it would be insane for her to respond to a voice in her head. But it had been insane to have a vision of another planet too and yet… it had happened. 

“Who’s there?” She whispered hesitantly as if she would scare away the voice with her own. 

She heard a gasp of air as if she had taken the voice by surprise but didn’t hear his response because she was jerked awake by a particularly rough patch of turbulence. 

“We will be landing in three minutes, Ms. Jones.” The pilot called back to her. 

“Thank you.” She said cautiously trying not to look like she had just been trying to talk to a faceless voice and instead taking one last scan through the documents that Fury had sent to her phone. 

Michelle took the last few minutes of the flight to collect her thoughts and prepare herself.

This was the big leagues. 

She was about to land at ground zero. This was where Thanos had chosen to attack because this was the strongest city on earth. 

Wakanda. 

Shuri had invited her to come a few years ago but conflicts always seemed to come up. There were no conflicts now- anyone who was anyone in the world of global defense was being flown in. There was no other mission. Half the world disappeared in the span of a few seconds. 

Nothing else mattered.

This is what she had always dreamed of, saving the world, making a difference, but now that she was here she found herself second guessing herself. She would be expected to contribute and strategize with what was left of the avengers and whatever governments hadn’t already destabilized and imploded. 

It had only been twenty-four hours since the snap and the world had already gone insane. People were panicked, countries were fighting, and resources were being hoarded. The public didn’t know what was going on-in reality, no one did. 

Hell of a first day on the job. 

The Quin jet landed, and Michelle took one final steadying breath and squared her shoulders with a confidence that she did not fully possess. Then she disembarked. 

Thankfully, Shuri was waiting on the tarmac to greet her. 

A year ago, Michelle might have nodded coolly or shook her hand, but now that half the world had disappeared she walked directly into Shuri’s outstretched arms and hugged her fiercely. 

“I’m so sorry about your brother.” Michelle said softly. 

“And I your father.” Shuri responded. Michelle’s heart panged. She had just gotten her father back only to discover that he had disappeared with all the rest. 

Everyone lost somebody. Some people lost everybody. 

“Welcome to Wakanda, I wish it were under happier circumstances.” Shuri said as the two girls stood back still clasping eachothers arms. 

“Thank you, Shuri.”

“Come on, everyone’s already inside.” Shuri turned and walked away leaving Michelle to take in the full impact of the Wakandan palace and skyline. Her mouth dropped open and she slowly spun around in awe of her surroundings, then she remembered why she was here in the first place and hurried after the princess. 

She followed Shuri through amazing halls full of art and culture, but she couldn’t fully appreciate it with the looming horror of the past day. Two female warriors opened heavy doors that led to what she assumed had been a throne room but now more closely resembled a war room filled with weary soldiers. 

“Strange, the only person who can actually see the future, said that this was the only way we would win.” THE Iron Man yelled at THE Captain of America. She was seriously going to have to get a grip and pick her jaw up off the floor if she was going to be any help to these people. 

“Does this feel like winning?” The room fell silent at Cap’s sobering words. 

The weight of what they were facing settled firmly on each of the shoulders in the room. They were the strongest shoulders earth had, but Michelle wasn’t sure even they could take the weight. 

Shuri cleared her throat. 

“This is Agent 217. She is here to represent SHIELD in this meeting and offer her assistance where she can.” Michelle nodded to the room of on lookers as they sized her up. 

To her surprise, Tony Stark was the first one to come up to her. 

“I’m so sorry.” Tony said sorrowfully as he took her hand in his and squeezed gently. 

Michelle cocked her head in confusion. Everyone in the world could use condolences but she distinctly got the impression that she was missing a crucial piece of information. Why was Tony Stark specifically apologizing to her when everyone in the room had lost someone precious to them? It wasn’t his responsibility. 

“It’s good to meet you, Mr. Stark.” Michelle said firmly shaking the hand that was still holding his. Tony was momentarily taken aback and then nodded firmly. 

“Call me Tony.”

“Alright, let’s get started.” Shuri said taking position around a large round table in the middle of the room. Bruce Banner, Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers, James Rhodes, Thor Odinson, Okoye, M’Baku, a very intelligent looking raccoon, a purple robot stepped up around the table, and a handful of generals from a few trusted nations. 

“What do we know?” Shuri asked calmly.

“Thanos, snapped half of the universe out of existence.” The purple robot said plainly. 

“Thank you, Nebula. But I meant what do we know about changing that. Whose left on the playing field?”

“Clint is on his way.” Natasha said seriously. “Anyone got a read on Lang?”

“He didn’t respond to any of my calls.” Steve answered.

“We should form a team and go find him.” Rhodes suggested. 

Michelle silently pulled her phone out of her back pocket and began typing away. Stretch had gone in the snap but even without her Girl in the Chair, Michelle could easily hack the FBI’s monitoring database. 

“Is there anyone else?” Bruce asked hopefully. 

“You’ve got the US military, but something tells me they are not going to be much help in this case.” Rhodes said honestly.

“What is left of SHIELD?” Steve asked. There was a long pause and then Shuri elbowed Michelle under the table. 

Oh shit. 

That was her now. She was the only elite agent who responded to the Code Red which automatically made her the acting director. 

No big deal. You got this. 

Who am I kidding? This is my first day!

Michelle cleared her throat. 

“I am currently the acting director of SHIELD.”

“What?” James asked in shock. 

“You’re just a kid.” Steve said shaking his head. There was a long pause of silence where everyone looked around the table assessing what was left of earth’s mightiest heroes and evidently found it lacking. 

Michelle knew this was the moment. 

This was the moment she either cracked under the pressure and faded away or she rose to the challenge and did what she had trained her whole life to be able to do. 

“You’re right. I am a kid. Full disclosure, I became a senior agent less than 48 hours ago, but I, like many of you have dedicated my entire life to protecting the people on this planet. I can’t promise you that I’ll be perfect, but I can promise you that I will rise to the challenge.”

“That’s a good speech, kid, but we can’t defeat Thanos with dreams and good intentions.” The raccoon said sarcastically. 

“My name isn’t kid. It’s MJ and I’m not planning on defeating Thanos with hopes and dreams. I haven’t had a chance to go through all of the files that were transferred to my phone when I assumed command of SHIELD, but I do know that Fury’s last act was to contact an asset off world. Let’s call her an old friend of the earth.”

“What and this magical girl is going to come and save the day?” The racoon asked in disbelief. 

“We need to find Thanos and make him pay for the lives he has taken.” Thor interjected passionately.

“Oh, because that plan worked so well for us the first time.” M’baku responded testily. 

Tensions coiled around the table and Michelle decided she would be the one to defuse them.

“First of all, that girl is the most powerful asset in SHIELD’s docket and that docket includes stats on every single person standing in this room. Second, I just hacked the FBI’s website and Scott Lang’s house arrest bracelet is still actively transmitting from his home. It would have shut off automatically after thirty minutes if he had disappeared. I have assets remaining in the area and I will rendezvous with them and get you a definitive answer on his whereabouts by morning. Any other questions?” Michelle refused to look away from all of the eyes that were measuring her up in the room. Natasha winked at her proudly.

Slowly but surely all of the heads in the room nodded their agreement. Tony hadn’t spoken the entire time, but he got a sad fond smile on his face like he was proud of her. It was an odd sensation considering this was the first time they had met, but it made her stand slightly taller none the less. 

“Thank you, Michelle.” Shuri said kindly. “Nebula, what else can you tell us about Thanos and the gauntlet. Is it even possible to reverse the snap?” Michelle finally exhaled as the scrutiny of the room turned away from her. 

Ok. You didn’t choke. Good. Now don’t say anything stupid and ruin all your progress.

“I don’t think it’s possible to reverse the snap, not unless you can figure out how to go back in time and stop him from snapping in the first place.” Nebula said offhandedly. 

“Any chance Wakanda has a time machine hidden in their closet?” Bruce asked hopefully.

“We are the most technologically advanced nation in the world, but no, we haven’t mastered time…yet.” Okoye chimed in. 

“Stark, tell us what you are thinking.” Natasha redirected the room's attention to Tony who had been silently observing the round table. 

“There is a significant amount of literature theorizing about how time moves differently in different realms.”

“Which realms?” Thor interrupted. 

“Not the ones out there, the ones all around us. The one’s beneath and between us.”

“I don’t understand.” Rhodes interjected. 

“The quantum realm.” Shuri answered for him. “But we have no way of knowing how to use it and could just as easily end up lost in time ourselves.”

“Yes, but theory would reason that if time moved differently in the quantum realm then we could find a way to use it to transport us back before the snap and prevent it from happening all together. No stones, no snap.” Bruce reasoned out loud. 

Michelle couldn’t lie, the actual physics of this idea was way beyond her current processing capacity, but the possibility of getting everyone back had her heart beating loudly in her chest. If anyone in the universe could pull this off, she trusted the people in this room to do it.

“Tony, you and I know that all of this is still theoretical. Even with Shuri’s help it will take years for us to figure this out and build the technology.”

“But if it does work, the time won’t matter.” Okoye wisely interjected.

“We can’t just alter the timeline and expect there not to be consequences. If we go back and change history, we have no idea what that will do to earth’s timeline. The result could be cataclysmic.” Shuri reasoned.

“More cataclysmic than half the universe turning to dust?” Nebula countered.

“This is our only lead, I think we pursue it and make the tough calls later when we actually have the choice. Accepting that half the universe will never return, is not an option.” Rhodes said definitively. 

“How do we get to the quantum realm?” Natasha asked. Ever the pragmatist. 

“Hank Pym and Scott Lang. If anyone had the technology to get to the quantum realm, it would be them.” Tony answered. 

Steve stood up straight and suddenly Michelle got the impression that even though the table was round, he was the head of it. His strong commanding voice caused chills to break out down her arms. 

"Let’s bring them in.” 

You heard the captain.


	2. Diner

“I don’t know how it is you are so familiar to me-or why it feels less like I am getting to know you and more as though I am remembering who you are. How every smile, every whisper brings me closer to the impossible conclusion that I have known you before, I have loved you before- in another time, a different place- some other existence.” -Lang Leav

Michelle was back on a quin jet heading towards San Francisco within the hour. 

Natasha crossed the jet to Michelle immediately after take-off and gave her a huge hug.

“Well done, Director Jones.” She said with a smirk.

“Ugh, please don’t call me that.” Michelle said self-consciously as she tucked away the tablet she had been studying. She was trying to gain a lifetime worth of experience in a few hours and the toll was heavy.

“I hear congratulations are in order. Norman Osborn is behind bars.”

“Yeah, I’m glad that’s over.” There was a long pause before Natasha spoke again.

“I’m sorry about Peter, I could tell how much he meant to you by the way you talked about him in South America.” She said softly. Michelle’s brow furrowed. 

“Thanks, but I uh…I don’t remember him.” Michelle admitted honestly. So, whoever this guy was his name was definitely Peter. 

Peter. 

Huh. I wonder what he was like.

“What do you mean you don’t remember?” Natasha asked with concern. 

“Osborn got a hold of me right after I gave SHIELD the information. He and his team had developed these serums, primarily for torture but with a convenient side effect of amnesia. Whatever combination of drugs and hypnosis Osborn’s team used, SHIELD could’t undo it and so they recommended I move on and not dwell. Everything else came back after a few weeks, but my time in Queens and this guy Peter that everyone thinks I’m in love with....I can’t remember.” 

“But they told you about him, right?” Natasha queried. 

“No, actually, the psychologists thought that it would be more traumatic to my recovery to place false expectations on something that is no longer real to me. They felt like it would prevent me from moving on.”

“Have you moved on?” 

“Honestly? No. It’s driving me insane. I’ve spent the last three months scouring the globe for the man who did this and I eventually found him.” Her voice trailed off as she remembered the trauma of watching that first person she witnessed fade away.

“What happened?” Natasha prompted when Michelle got lost in the memory. 

“The snap happened. Now all of you are telling me that I was in love with a guy named Peter, but it doesn’t mean anything to me. I just can’t...anyway maybe the psychologists were right. Maybe, I shouldn’t even be trying. Apparently, I would’ve lost him anyway.” She hated the defeated attitude she heard in her own voice but that was where she was. She was frankly terrified to try and remember this man because she knew she would have to learn how to say goodbye all over again. She was tired of saying goodbye.

“Bullshit.” Natasha said bluntly tearing her out of her own self-inflicted pity party.

“Excuse me?”

“That’s bullshit Michelle and you know it. That guy, the one you can’t remember. He changed your life. He’s the reason you are the Michelle you are today and not the closed off shell that I left at the compound mourning her parents. Take it from someone who has spent the majority of her life as a closed off shell disconnected from her true emotions, that doesn’t happen every day. Those people, the ones who can really touch us, they only come along once in a lifetime. I think you owe it to him to keep trying to remember. To find out as much as you can about him.”

“How will that change anything?”

“We may not be able to get any of them back, but we can’t just forget that they ever existed. Every single one of their lives mattered. If we forget them, then Thanos really did win.”

Michelle nodded thoughtfully. She knew that her friend was right, but her heart and mind were battling for dominance over her actions. 

She settled on avoidance instead.

“We should get some sleep.” She said in an effort to change the subject, she couldn’t deal with this right now. There was a mission to focus on. 

Natasha smiled sadly and then went back into the cockpit leaving Michelle alone to contemplate what she had said. Only, Michelle hadn’t slept but thirty minutes in the last thirty-six hours and the gentle lull of the jet’s engine quickly lulled her to sleep. 

******

“HELLLLOOOOOO!!!” A loud voice echoed through her skull.

“Ouch, damn, you don’t have to yell, I’m right here.” She said out of annoyance at being woken up so suddenly. 

She quickly deduced she wasn’t actually awake.

“You’re back! Where did you go? It’s been days!” The voice stated accusingly. 

“I’ve been too busy to sleep and I’m not the one haunting someone’s dreams so chill the frick out.” She said testily. 

Was she ever going to be able to get some real sleep?

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just….it is lonely here and I have no way of keeping track of the time. The silence gets to you after a while. Ya know?” 

Michelle did know. She had spent so much time alone in the dark after her mother died that she had begun to tap phone calls just to hear people talking and living normal lives. It reminded her that she needed to keep living too. 

“Are you really asleep?” The boy asked curiously. 

“Either that or I’ve gone certifiably insane. Who are you?” Michelle asked back. 

“Peter. Peter Parker.” 

Of course, he was. There was no more denying it to herself. This had to be him. 

The one her mind had forgotten but her soul couldn’t forget. 

“Aren’t you going to ask me what my name is?” Michelle prompted. 

“I would know your voice anywhere, Michelle.”

She felt butterflies gather in her belly.

Weird. 

Michelle Jones didn’t get butterflies.

She was just about to respond when her eyes flew open and she was transported back into the jet having her shoulder shaken by Natasha.

“Finally, you slept for three hours. We’re here.”

Three hours?

But, I just closed my eyes. 

Were here. 

Right. 

Focus, Michelle. 

“Steve and Rhodey already cleared the house. Apparently, the bracelet was attached to a giant ant.” Natasha explained in a serious tone that told Michelle the statement was not a joke. Although, her curious nature would not allow her to let that go without a follow-up question. 

“Giant ant?” 

“These guys are pretty weird, and they really like bugs. Just go with it.” Michelle nodded.

Okay. Giant ants. Cool. 

“The local SHIELD operative got a lead on Lang’s van. It’s parked on the top of an abandoned parking garage about three blocks north.” Steve’s voice came through the intercom. 

“We will meet you there.” 

*****

“So, Scott is in the quantum realm right now?” Michelle asked the group of heroes standing around the van scratching their heads. 

“Could be.” Natasha reasoned.

“How do we get him out?” James asked. Everyone shrugged their shoulders. 

They should have brought one of the scientists with them. 

Natasha was analyzing one of the carts of equipment and discovered what appeared to be an intercom. She pressed it a few times and only heard static. 

“Scott come in.” She said hopefully. 

“Scott, come in.”

No response. 

The group looked around at each other as a blanket of nervous anticipation fell over them. 

“Scott Lang, this is Natasha Romanov come in.”

Static. 

“Scott, come in.”

Static.

Steve sighed, and the rest of the group followed suit. 

“Well let’s pack up the tech and get it back to Wakanda. Maybe, they can make sense of it.” Steve reasoned. 

The group all turned toward the two jets to clear space for the gear when a voice came through the static from the radio. 

“Hello? Is anybody out there?”

“Holy shit.” Rhodes exclaimed. 

Natasha dove for the radio piece. 

“Scott is that you?”

A pause.

“Widow? What the hell are you doing in San Francisco?” The good-natured voice came through clearly. Every single one of them exhaled the breaths they had been holding.

“You can catch up later.” Steve interrupted. 

“Scott, how do we get you out?” Michelle asked quickly.

“I just need a signal to lock onto. There should be three red button thingies on the top of the quantum generator.”

“I see them.” The blonde spy chimed in.

“Press the middle one, and then stand back.” Scott said ominously. 

Natasha depressed the bottom and then the four of them collectively took three large steps backwards. 

The doors on the back of the van flew open and concentrated light and energy began to flow through the tunnel-like contraption inside causing the ground to shake and tremble. Michelle looked at Natasha in question and she shrugged her shoulders in confusion. 

One second there was no-one there, the next, a three-foot-tall man appeared in front of them. 

Huh? 

“Son of a bitch. This suit always does this to me.” The tiny man clicked the buttons on his gloves several times and then miraculously popped into a normal sized man. 

“Phew, that’s better. What the hell are you guys doing here? Where is Hope? What took so long to get me out?” The man had a beard and hair that had grown halfway to his waist and looked as though he hadn’t showered in months...maybe years.

“Lang, it’s good to see you. We could use your help.” Steve extended his hand for a hand shake. 

“Captain. Which government did you piss off this time?” Scott clearly meant it as a joke, but Michelle still noted the wariness in his eyes. 

“Have you guys seen Wasp? Or Pym? Or Luis? I can’t believe those assholes left me in there for months. What the hell happened? Does anyone have any Gatorade? Or snacks? I’m starving.”

Michelle had never heard anyone talk as fast as Scott Lang did, but she decided immediately that she liked his sense of humor. He reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t place it. 

“Scott, what day did you go in?” James asked cautiously. 

“Monday, probably like three or four months ago. I don’t know. Time is super weird in there plus I got sucked up by a vortex and it took ages to get out.”

“It’s only Wednesday and your friends didn’t leave you in there intentionally. They’re gone.”

“Good joke guys, you expect me to believe it’s only been a day since I went in? I’ll admit I get a mean five o clock shadow, but not even I can grow this type of beard overnight. This was all very funny. Where are they? Are they hiding? You guys can come out now the jokes over.” He raised his voice at the end clearly expecting people to hop out from their hiding spaces.

“Scott, this is going to be very difficult for you to believe but an alien named Thanos got a hold of all of the infinity stones…”

“The infini-what now?”

“They are very powerful cosmic gems that allowed him to snap half of the universe out of existence. We believe that your friends were snapped and that’s why they didn’t pull you out.” Steve explained calmly with his hands extended as if he though Lang was going to lose it at any second. 

“Ok. I don’t like this joke. What the hell is going on?” Scott said as a serious edge seeped into his words. 

“This is not a joke. We need your help to get everyone back. We think that using the quantum realm may be the only way.” Scott met the eyes of each of the people standing before him as if assessing their seriousness. When he registered how incredibly sincere each person was, he finally snapped into action.

“No. no. no. Oh my god, my daughter.” Scott pulled out his cell phone and began typing furiously but repeatedly got an error message reading ‘no signal.’ 

Michelle handed him her own phone.

“Most of the cell towers are not functioning, but this phone operates on satellite. Try calling her again.” Michelle said gently. She couldn’t even imagine the shock he was experiencing. She had felt a body disintegrate into dust in her own hands and her mind was still having trouble accepting it as reality. She couldn’t imagine how difficult this would all be to process if she was hearing about it second hand. 

“Cassie?” Scott’s voice broke as the line connected. “Maggie, thank god, is Cassie with you? She is?..... I don’t know…. He did?.... I don’t know what’s going on either. I’ll be there, I promise. I don’t know. I don’t know. Stay at the house. Stay inside. I’ll be there soon.” Scott disconnected the call and looked up at the waiting bystanders in defeat. It was clear by the terrified expression in his eyes that he now understood how incredibly serious they were.

“What the hell happened?”

*******

Michelle collapsed into bed after having been awake for thirty-six hours. They had gotten Lang out of the Quantum realm and brought his family and all of his technology back to Wakanda without any interference from the FBI. They were understandably a bit preoccupied. 

God, she was tired. 

She didn’t know how they were going to pull this off. The people that currently made up the avengers were not a team, they were practically strangers. Not to mention the fact that they couldn’t be in a room together without constantly bickering. She couldn’t really blame them though; the fate of the universe was hanging on there already stressed and distraught shoulders. They could barely function let alone scheme a way to defeat one of the most powerful beings in the universe. 

After listening to them go back and forth for hours, Michelle finally dismissed herself to the dormitory that Shuri had assigned her. 

She wouldn’t be any help to anyone if she passed out from exhaustion. 

Her room was right next to Natasha’s and across the hall from Nebula’s. Under any other circumstances, the opportunity to pick the brain of a half-android alien would be irresistible, but Michelle could barely keep her eyes open let alone carry on an intelligent conversation.

She toed of her boots and before she even heard them hit the floor she had fallen asleep. 

Not but a moment later, his voice filled her mind.

“Where have you been?” There wasn’t any accusation in his tone, but she felt the implication all the same. She was presumably his only connection to the outside world and she had been gone for a long time. 

Her heart inexplicably contracted in her chest. 

“Working on bringing everyone home.” Michelle said honestly. There was a long pause before Peter responded.

“Can you do that?”

“Not me, but the brightest minds that the earth has are working around the clock on it.” The two familiar strangers were silent in each other’s minds for a minute before she interrupted the peaceful companionship with her ever present curiosity. 

“Any idea why we can talk in my dreams Peter Parker?” She asked in an effort to distract herself from the feeling of completeness that was warming her soul the longer she spent in this mysterious place with him. 

“I’m assuming there is some type of psychic link between us, but honestly, I’m just as confused as you are. I am supposed to be dead.” Peter added honestly. 

“Do you know where you are? Is there anyone else there with you?” The easiest way to distract herself from the foreign feelings that were bubbling up the longer she spoke with him was to go into agent mode. If she was acting as an agent, she couldn’t get distracted by these pesky feelings tugging at her heart. Probably. 

“I have no idea where I am. It’s dark and there is nothing around me, but I get the impression that there are other people here. I just can’t communicate with them…. or see them or touch them…” His voice trailed off as he remembered his bleak predicament. Michelle’s heart panged.

“I’m sorry. I wish I knew how to save you. I’m with all of the avengers in Wakanda now, but honestly, we are a long way from a rescue mission.”

“Is Tony there? Is he okay?”

“Yes, he’s alive, although, he is not okay... no one is.”

“Yeah, I can only imag-ohmygod MAY!” Peter yelled loudly. 

“Ouch, Stop! Yelling! What’s a May?” Michelle yelled back with irritation.

But before he could respond, Michelle was yanked out of the dreamworld by the incessant buzzing of the phone she had inherited from Nick Fury across the nightstand. 

“Hello?” She said groggily. A glance at the clock revealed she had only been asleep for a few hours.

“Who is this?” A feminine voice demanded from the other end of the line. 

“This is Director Jones, who is this?”

“What happened to Fury?” Michelle’s sleepy brain finally started to process what she was hearing, and hopeful adrenaline surged through her veins. 

Could it be. Was she here?

“The same thing that happened to half the universe.” She stated plainly and then repeated her question. “Who is this?”

“This is Carol Danvers. I received your distress signal.”

*****

Michelle skidded to a stop on her motorcycle and a thick dust bloomed around her in the gravel parking lot before being carried away with the chilly breeze. This was the address Carol had sent her and requested to meet at but it appeared to be completely abandoned. 

Michelle wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. 

She had hopped out of bed bleary eyed and sleep deprived and climbed into the first jet to the states. She had decided to dress for comfort and confidence because she was severely lacking in both of those things. She was wearing her favorite leather jacket that Lucy had given her for Christmas two years ago over a comfy pair of jeans and her trusty SHIELD issued combat boots. She knew her curly hair was probably close to resembling an afro after riding without a helmet and her eyes were lined with dark circles from lack of sleep, but she was ready to meet this woman. 

She was really just thankful she had something to do other than listen to people argue about science that was far beyond her scope of understanding or day dream about a complete stranger’s voice that was never too far from her mind. 

After swinging her leg over her bike, she forced herself to square her shoulders while secretly hoping she actually looked the part of director. 

Who was she kidding? 

She was just a kid playing dress up. 

Michelle pulled off her sunglasses after stepping inside the run-down diner in the small Virginian beach town and scanned for patrons. 

This shamble of a diner was like many small privately-owned businesses she had driven past on her way and was just another example of the unforeseen consequences of Thanos’ snap. Most of the windows had been smashed in and nearly every table and dish was strewn across the floor. 

The snap hadn’t just reduced the population, it had resulted in chaos and in some cases anarchy. People allowed their fear to overcome their better judgement and morality and so countless communities wound up plundered and abandoned by the very people who had built them.

Banks across the globe frantically tried to sort out the plummeting and tumultuous stock fallout, while fear and anxiety kept everyone either hiding inside their homes or frantically stealing and stockpiling goods from their neighbors.

A few days ago, this had probably been a hometown treasure and a meeting place for a conglomeration of all different types of people, but now, it was an empty shell of a building that lacked even an ounce of it's previous vitality. 

Well, almost empty. 

The booth at the furthest end of the small restaurant contained a single patron. The woman’s head was leaned back against the leather booth and an air force baseball cap was propped over her face. She was wearing a green khaki jacket over jeans and her arms were crossed over her evenly rising and falling chest. She appeared to be sleeping. 

Michelle wiped the sweat that had gathered on her palms on her jeans in anticipation of meeting the powerful woman. If she hadn’t grown up hearing Nick Fury tell stories about how powerful and selfless the woman was, she might have underestimated the small framed blonde. 

Every time, her parents had been out on a mission and she couldn’t sleep, she had begged Nick to tell her the story of the first super hero he recruited to SHIELD. He always gave in because he had loved that story as much as she did. 

Who wouldn’t love the story of an Air-force pilot turned intergalactic hero?

Michelle never would have dreamed she would actually meet the larger than life hero let alone be tasked with re-recruiting her after she spent years on sabbatical in outer space. 

Carol Danvers. 

Or as those with enough clearance to know about her existence called her…

Captain Marvel.

Marvelous wasn’t an understatement either. If all the stories Nick told her were true, she might just be the only being in the universe with enough power to defeat Thanos. Michelle mentally reviewed the list of powers that Nick Fury had recorded in the SHIELD file on Carol. 

Superhuman strength, stamina, durability, agility, reflexes, healing, and immunity. Flash precognition which allowed her an extra second’s advantage in combat. Flight, on earth and in space. Oh, and as if that wasn’t enough, she could also shoot powerful photonic energy blasts out of her hands while simultaneously absorbing insane amounts of energy directed against her. 

Plus, she could do something called ‘going binary’ where she literally transformed into the equivalent of a white hole. 

Yes, you read that correctly not a black hole- a white hole, in which she could create heat, light, radiation and all other forms of electromagnetic energy on insane scales. 

The woman was a walking legend. 

So. Freaking. Awesome. 

Alright, focus Michelle. 

Enough fangirling. You’re here to recruit her and bring her back to Wakanda not get an autograph. 

Michelle’s boots made a distinct crunching noise as she made her way across the sea of broken plates and upturned tables. She slid as gracefully as possible into the sticky leather booth across from the dozing woman.

“You’re a little on the young side to be a director.” The woman’s voice sounded from below the cap before Michelle had even fully sat down. 

So definitely, not sleeping. Noted. 

“You’re a little on the small side to be a super-hero.” Michelle responded evenly. 

Carol laughed heartily and then sat up and repositioned her baseball cap, so Michelle could see her face. 

Dang, did she have to look like super model too? The woman’s SHIELD photo had not done her justice- she also hadn’t aged a day. Beauty aside, it was immediately clear she expected to be taken seriously for her intelligence and her strength not her aesthetic appearance. 

Michelle already respected the hell out of her and she hadn’t even introduced herself.

The woman extended a hand. 

“Carol.” Michelle shook it firmly while Carol appraised her with calculating eyes, but Michelle refused to look away or be intimidated.

“Michelle.” 

“So, Thanos got all the infinity stones?” Carol asked without preamble or any attempt at small talk. 

“That’s what they’re saying. Any chance, you know how to reverse that?” Michelle asked hopefully. 

“Unfortunately, time travel wasn’t one of the powers I got in my accident.”

“Damn.” Michelle said with a smile, so the other woman knew she was joking, but then added seriously, “we need your help.”

“I’m willing to help in whatever way I can. I lost a lot of friends too.” Michelle exhaled the breath she had been holding and both women were silent for a moment remembering the lives of each of the people they had lost. 

“So, where’s home base?” Carol asked after a few more moments.

“Wakanda.”

“Where the hell is that?” Carol asked with furrowed brows.

“It’s in Africa. You’ve missed a little bit in the last 24 years.”

“Apparently. Fill me in on the way.”

*****

“So, there is an Ant-Man and a Spider-Man?” Carol asked as she sipped coffee in the back of the Wakandan jet. 

“Yes, there is actually a Wasp too, but they are all fairly new to the scene. Tony Stark and Steve Rogers are the leaders of the Avengers. Of course, that worked better when they were speaking.”

“The leaders of the proclaimed mightiest heroes of earth are not speaking?”

“Yeah, they had a falling out a couple years back about the Socovia accords and an old friend of Steve’s and it fractured the team in two. If I’m being completely honest, I think it is a huge part of the reason they lost because when they work together, that team is nearly unstoppable.”

“Ugh, men can be so dramatic. We’ll lock them in a room until they work it out. Tell me more about this time travel idea.”

“I’m definitely not an expert but the gist is that the scientists responsible for Lang’s tech have discovered a way to transport themselves into the quantum realm- basically the subatomic world that is holding everything together. Inside of the quantum realm are not only powerful energy sources but also a phenomenon called Time Vortexes that they have theorized will be able to transport a team back in time and change the outcome of what is now being called the infinity war.” Carol furrowed her brow in question.

“Interesting. What about the potential of creating an even worse outcome?” 

“That is one of the things everybody has been arguing about. Some, people think they should go back to the moment each infinity stone was rediscovered and leave clues and prompts to better protect them and prepare for Thanos’ attack. Others think we should just rewind it to the battle of Wakanda to minimize the alteration of the timeline. But, none of that will matter if we can’t actually figure out how to use them safely.”

“Do we know where Thanos is now? Does he pose any threat to the remaining half of the universe?”

“Nebula, who is technically his daughter but definitely hates him more than any of us, doesn’t believe so. He’s a psychotic monster but his intention was only ever to achieve balance, and, in his mind, he has done it.”

“But if he finds out we are going to reverse it…”

“Then we will have a serious fight on our hands.”

*****

Michelle walked side by side with Carol past the vast architecture and tapestries detailing the Wakandan history on the way to the throne room.

“This place is incredible. I can’t believe we didn’t even know it existed.”

“When T’challa revealed even a fraction of what this nation was capable of to the United Nations, it changed the world. It gave hope and pride back to a people group who had felt subjugated for generations.” Michelle couldn’t help the pride from seeping into her voice.

“You knew about it before?” She inquired. 

“Yes, that is the one benefit of growing up on a SHIELD base. There wasn’t much going on in the world that I wasn’t aware of.” 

“I was a military brat too, although I broke my dad’s heart when I chose air force over army.”

“I’ve never understood that rivalry.” Michelle responded honestly.

“It’s hard to understand if you’re not in it.” She got a far way look in her eye at those words.

“What made you decide to join up?” Michelle asked curiously. 

“I think in a way it was always part of me. I grew up seeing people sacrifice their lives and their comfort to protect others and I always knew I would do the same. As for becoming a pilot, I just wanted to fly.” A vaguely mischievous smile tugged up the side of her face as she remembered.

“It was the same for me. After seeing the sacrifices that my parents and everyone around me made to protect life and freedom, I couldn’t have tolerated doing anything less.”

“Your parents? You wouldn’t happen to be related to Michael Jones, would you?”

“That’s my dad.” Michelle said as evenly as possible hoping her voice wouldn’t tremble with the years of pain associated with the man.

“No way. I worked with him and Rebecca Gates briefly in the 90’s to weed out the Skrull in SHIELD’s ranks. They were incredible agents.” 

Michelle’s heart broke in a spot that had been frozen for years. 

There were few people who remembered the good things that her mother had done. Her mom had completed incredible missions for the country and saved so many lives, but no one cared because her intentions were not pure. All they could see was her final betrayal. 

Most days that betrayal was all that Michelle could see too, but occasionally she would be reminded of the life they had as a family before HYDRA fell and then the pain would return as fresh as the moment she heard the gun fire in her family’s living room.

“Rebecca was my mom. She died a few years ago.” Michelle said plainly. She couldn’t trust herself to add any more without betraying the storm of emotions brewing inside of her. Carol stopped and put her hand on Michelle’s shoulder to halt her as well. 

“I’m very sorry, Michelle. I know that she would be incredibly proud of who you have become.”

Carol’s sincere words patched a hole in her heart that she hadn’t even known had been there. She would have sworn to anyone that asked that she didn’t care at all what her mother thought of her, but that would have been a lie. 

Daughters always want the approval of their mothers.

“Thank you.”

They had finally reached the door to the throne room. Michelle knew that behind this door there would be a perfect storm of hope, fear, tension, and egos and she silently prayed Carol would be a voice of reason. 

“You ready for this?” Michelle asked as she nodded at the two warriors standing ready to open the door. 

Carol nodded and visibly squared her shoulders. It was only a small change in demeanor, but Michelle couldn’t help but appreciate how much space the small woman took up with her commanding presence. 

“Let’s go save the world, Jones.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who else got hype watching the Captain Marvel trailer this week?


	3. Note

“It was instinctive the way I fell for you.  
Like an effortless intake of breath.”  
-Josh Walker

 

“Peter are you still there?” There was a long moment of silence when Michelle feared she had lost the strange connection with the boy lost somewhere in the vast universe.

“I’m here.”

Michelle exhaled the breath she hadn’t even known she had been holding before responding. 

“I’m sorry I left so suddenly. What were you saying about May?”

“May is my aunt. She lives in Queens. I don’t know if she is…. alive or if she knows about me yet.” 

Had she known May too? Did they get along? Did she approve of Michelle dating her nephew? Could May tell her about Peter?

“I can go find her for you.” The words were out of her mouth before she even realized what she was saying. 

“You would do that?” Peter asked in with a hint of surprise. 

“I know that I don’t really know you, but I know that I’m supposed to, and I know that if our positions were reversed, I would want someone to check on my dad.”

“Did he…?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m so sorry Michelle. I know how much it meant to you to get him back.” Memories pricked her heart like daggers at the mention of her father. She knew she would fall apart if she dwelled on it, so she did the one thing that always worked, she changed the subject and started a new mission.

“Do you want me to give May a message for you?” Peter was quiet for a few moments and Michelle knew he was trying to summarize a lifetime worth of love into a few words. That’s what she would have done too. 

“Tell her I larb her and that I miss her.”

“Larb?”

“It’s an inside joke. She’ll know what it means.” Michelle could hear the sad smile in Peter’s voice.

“Anything else?”

“Tell her I finally did some traveling, but I think I like Queens the best.”

Michelle felt tears gather in the side of her eyes and then fall down her cheek at Peter’s words. This new reality, where everyone had lost half of everything they loved, revealed new heartbreaks around every corner. She wasn’t sure anyone was going to survive it. 

“How was your day?” He asked after both of them slowly recovered from the bleak heaviness of their reality. Michelle inhaled deeply and then responded with a falsely positive tone of voice refusing to succumb to the sorrow brewing in her heart. 

“Good. I got to bring in this super bad ass hero and she is helping sort through the mind field of individuals working on bringing you all back. Shuri enhanced the quantum generator and it is already ten times more powerful and capable of transporting much larger groups of people. Steve took a team off to pursue a woman who they call ‘Ghost’ because she is apparently an expert at Quantum tra-”

“I appreciate the update, Michelle. But what I really meant was how are you?” Michelle took another deep breath and thought about that for the first time since the snap happened. There really was only one answer.

“I’m scared.” She hated how small her voice sounded. 

“Me too.” Michelle felt a warmth bubble in her heart at his words. For the first time in a while, she didn’t feel so alone. 

“I’m going to say something, and I don’t expect you to respond, I just need to get it off my chest.” Peter said interrupting her internal reverie. 

“Okay.” Nerves flooded Michelle’s system. 

What was he going to say?

“I miss you so damn much, Michelle.” Her breath caught in her chest as her soul registered the emotion packed behind each of those words. 

I miss you too.

She almost said the words out loud, but she distantly heard her alarm going off. It was growing louder by the second as her mind began to wake up. 

“I have to go, Peter.”

“I know. I can hear it too.”

“I’ll be back I promise.”

“Goodbye, MJ.”

Michelle’s eyes fluttered open and she immediately registered the dampness on her pillow and the puffiness of her eyes. 

She had been crying in her sleep again. She couldn’t conjure a single memory of them together and yet felt strongly enough about him that just speaking to him while unconscious brought on a torrent of tears. 

Why couldn’t she remember?

A restless anxiety boiled through her system and unfamiliar emotions filled her mind causing her to panic and bolt off the bed. 

She had to move. 

She had to run. 

She couldn’t take it anymore. 

Michelle laced her tennis shoes, made her way out of the palace and took off in a full sprint. 

Her feet pounded across the empty Wakandan roads as the world continued to sleep in the pre-dawn hours of night. She had intentionally set an alarm for this early so that she would have some time to herself to process everything that was happening.

She missed her friends. 

She missed her father. 

She hated Thanos. 

She was speaking with someone while she slept. 

Her heart pounded in her chest as she sprinted up a steep hill leading to the top of a waterfall. Sweat poured down her back as she pushed her body to exhaustion, but no matter how hard and fast she ran she couldn’t escape it. 

She knew him. 

She missed a smile she couldn’t picture.

She ached to hear a laugh that she couldn’t conjure to her mind. 

She yearned to hold a hand that she couldn’t recall ever feeling. 

She still loved him.

She couldn’t remember anything about him, but she knew that she loved him as clearly as she could feel the morning dew on her skin as she pounded through the tall green grass. Michelle halted to a stop on a cliff and surveyed the vast river beds around Wakanda just as the first light of morning began to blaze across the valley. 

She had to know. 

If she didn’t do something about this-if she didn’t tell someone, she was going to explode. 

She was done avoiding this.

She had to know him again and if SHIELD couldn’t fix her than she would have to put her mind back together piece by piece on her own. She was Michelle Freaking Jones. She had spent her entire life training to piece together motives and mysteries. If she couldn’t paint a picture of this mysterious boy, then no one could….

….and she knew just where to start 

******

QUEENS, NEW YORK

May stirred a cup of coffee absentmindedly behind the register of her shop. She was determined to keep her doors open as long as possible.

People needed a place to gather-a place to remember the people they lost. 

She shook her head sadly. 

Maybe they needed a place to forget.

She just needed a reason to get up in the morning and keep living. 

Peter was gone. 

He hadn’t come home. 

She had been standing in this exact spot when it happened. She had reached out to hand a customer his change when he gasped. The coins she had placed in his hand scattered across the counter as his hand faded out of existence. Their eyes met for a heart stopping second. 

The shock and terror she had seen in his eyes as his body faded to dust would haunt May as long as she lived. 

At first, she had thought it was a trick of her mind or a fluke in her vision. 

Then half of everyone else faded away too. 

She knew in her soul that Peter had been one of the soul’s that disappeared, but her mind refused to stop perseverating about the different possibilities.

She wondered where he had been when it happened. 

Did it hurt? 

Was he alone? 

What went through his mind as he faded away? 

Why hadn’t he come to the shop after the field trip like he had promised?

What the hell were those giant donut shaped machines in the sky?

Had he gone on them?

Of course, he had.

She had to squeeze her eyes shut against the wave of pain that surfaced at her thoughts and remind herself to breath. As she inhaled deeply, she mentally tried to suppress the current of sorrow rising to suffocate her.

As if that had ever worked for anyone.

She had lost the last member of her small patchwork family to a global catastrophe the likes of which had never before been imagined. 

Why couldn’t it have been her?

Why was she always the one getting left behind?

Stop. No good can come from those types of thoughts. 

She couldn’t afford to fall apart.

She had to be strong for the people who couldn’t be. Ben would have been strong. Peter would have been strong. 

So, she would be too. 

There were people who still needed her. 

Ned had shown up on her doorstep at midnight crying and terrified because his parents were gone. A few hours later, a very beat up Lu knocked defeatedly on her door after trying and failing to protect his shop from the first wave of hysteria that had struck the city in the aftermath. 

The three of them walked around the apartment like ghosts as they fought to keep breathing.

God, she missed Peter. 

Her mind tortured her on a continuous loop with memories of moments she could have told him she loved him or been more gracious about Spider-man. She missed his easy smile and the effortless way he charmed her even when she was pissed at him. She would give anything to find him beat up and bleeding in the kitchen at three am just one more time. 

This time she wouldn’t yell. 

This time she would just hug him until he couldn’t stand it any longer. 

He had been so young. She ached for all the things he would never get to do. 

He wouldn’t graduate high school or pick a university. 

He would never go to a college party and wake up with a wicked hangover. 

He would never make a scientific discovery or invent a groundbreaking piece of technology.

He would never get to marry Michelle. 

God, she missed Michelle too. 

She prayed that she was ok. 

In the back of her mind, she registered the bell over the door chiming to alert her to a new patron entering the shop, but not even that had the power to pull her out of her depressing revelry. 

She needed to move. She needed to greet the patron and make them their coffee, but she was frozen. 

This comatose state of utter despair had trapped her a lot in the last few days and she still hadn’t figured out a way to break out of it. 

Luckily this time she didn’t have to. 

“May?” 

The hesitant voice jarred her out of her stupor and she quickly wiped away the tears that had escaped her eyes trying to hide the evidence of her crumbling heart. As if she could hide the fact that she had been crying herself to sleep for days now. 

Enough. 

She took a deep breath pulling her face into what she hoped was a believable smile and turned   
to the guest. 

Inhale. 

Exhale. 

The tears she had worked so hard to exterminate reformed instantly as her mind registered the curly brown hair and deep soulful brown eyes. 

She didn’t even question it. She walked directly around the counter and crushed the girl against her chest while burying her nose in the unruly curls. After a moment’s hesitation, the young woman embraced her back with just as much ferocity. 

“Michelle, you came home.” May whispered as the torrent of tears spilled over onto her cheeks. Relief flooded through May’s system knowing that she was alive. She had called her cell phone number a thousand times since the dusting, even knowing it had been disconnected. Holding Michelle was as close to holding a piece of Peter as there was on earth. In a lot of ways, Michelle was Peter’s heart.

It was minutes before the pair finally gained enough strength to pull apart. May immediately saw the hesitation hidden in her tear-filled eyes. Michelle didn’t recognize her. 

“May. I’m so sorry… I can’t don’t... I just…I had to come….” Michelle squeezed her eyes shut in shame and looked down at her toes. The next words she spoke were so soft, that if May hadn’t been right in front of her, she would have missed them. 

“I miss him so much.”

May reached out and put her hand on the beautiful girl’s cheek wiping away the dampness and tugging her chin back up.

“Coffee?”

*****

Michelle discreetly tried to wipe away her remaining tears while the kind woman went to make their coffee. She didn’t know what had come over her. She typically never would have allowed herself to show this much emotion in front of her closest friends, let alone a virtual stranger. But she hadn’t been able to stop herself from melting into the woman’s warm arms and letting the buildup of emotion drain out of her soul. 

Something about this place. 

It felt like the walls themselves whispered the word ‘home’ to her beaten and bruised soul. 

Pull yourself together, Jones. 

She took a moment to appreciate the eclectic yet hospitable style of the small space. She had researched May before coming and knew that the woman had opened this business on her own a few months after her husband had died. Now that she was here, it was no mystery why the intimate coffee shop had thrived in the Queens community despite being away from the main roads and businesses. 

May’s spirit could clearly be felt in each piece of art, mismatched chair, and thriving plant. 

As she surveyed the shop, Michelle’s eyes were pulled to a closet sized alcove in the far corner. Her feet seemed to move of their own volition towards the warn leather chair sitting alone under a painted quote. 

The unmistakable feeling of déjà vu overwhelmed her a she reached out and felt the smooth buttery texture of the caramel leather. 

She knew this place. She had been here before.

“You used to sit here for hours.” May’s voice startled her out of her reminiscent preoccupation. Michelle turned and took the cup of coffee that May extended to her in a handmade ceramic mug.

“I had never seen someone read for so many hours straight without moving. After a while, I began to think of it as your chair.” May said with a faraway look as Michelle sipped the steaming liquid. 

It was delicious and made exactly how she loved it. How strange to look into May’s eyes and see that she knew her personally but not cognitively be able to recognize her. 

“I can’t think of a better place for getting lost in the pages of a book.” Michelle didn’t exactly mean to say the words out loud but the smile that spread across May’s face assured her that it had been the right thing to say.

“Here, let’s sit.” May led them towards a comfy velvet couch in a deep red color and the pair sat hesitantly before pivoting and facing each other. May was the first to break the silence.

“Michelle, have you heard anything about....” She couldn’t finish the sentence. Michelle couldn’t blame her. It was hard for her to even think about Peter while awake, let alone say his name, but she needed to be strong. 

“Peter disappeared in the snap.” May’s eyes refilled, and she looked away squeezing them shut. “I’m so sorry.” May shook her head and a faint smile curved her lips.

“I think I knew deep down, but there was a part of me that was still hoping that he was out there swinging around and saving people in that stupid red and blue suit.”

Michelle had already deduced from people’s comments that Peter was Spider-Man but to hear the confirmation from his aunt’s own mouth still surprised her.

She had been dating Spider-man. Her favorite super hero. 

She was more desperate than ever to remember. 

“Will you tell me about him?” Michelle asked tentatively. May looked deeply into her eyes for a moment before nodding and settling deeper into the couch. 

“Peter was-“ she stopped and visibly swallowed before continuing, “-is my nephew. He came to live with Ben and I when he was just five years old and he stole my heart with his big brown eyes from the very first moment he looked up at me. He had this insatiable sense of hope and curiosity about the world that inspired…inspires me even on my darkest of days. He wasn’t a cool kid, in fact, he got picked on quite a bit because he was so incredibly intelligent that most of the kids his age couldn’t understand what he was talking about half the time.” She got a fond look in her eye and Michelle leaned in, hanging on every word the woman said. 

“He had this inextinguishable kindness for everyone he met. If I told you the number of stray animals that he brought home over the years, you wouldn’t believe it.” Michelle smiled with her this time as a picture of the young man she had lost began to form in her eyes. 

“He was the very best of his father and his uncle and he was my hero long before he ever got powers and put on the suit.” 

“If he had even half of your kindness, I know he would have been an incredible man.” May’s glassy eyes met Michelle’s as she tucked a strand of her long chestnut hair behind her ear.

“Thank you, Michelle.” 

She needed to tell her the truth. May deserved it.

Michelle didn’t know how to explain that she had been talking to Peter without May throwing her into an insane asylum, but she knew she had to pass on the message that Peter had given her. 

“He larbs you, May.” The older woman’s eyes flipped back up to Michelle’s under slightly furrowed brows. “And he misses you.” 

“What did you just say?” She ignored the question in order to finish the message he had trusted her to deliver to the woman he loved the most in the world. 

“He said he finally got to travel, but he decided he likes home the best.” Michelle’s voice cracked on the word ‘home’, but she forced herself to finish and meet May’s eyes. 

“You spoke with him.”

Michelle nodded. 

“Was it before the dusting?”

Michelle shook her head.

“I know that this is going to sound absolutely insane, but please trust me.” May’s eyes were still understandably guarded.

“Okay.” She said hesitantly.

“I can talk to Peter when I’m asleep.” May hadn’t thrown her out yet so Michelle decided to continue.

“He told me to come find you, that is why I came here today.” Michelle waited for the inevitable rejection to register on the woman’s features, but to her amazement it never came. 

“How?” She asked instead. Michelle took a deep calming breath.

“I don’t know exactly. I just know that it is really him and I know that I want to remember him more than anything else.” Tears spilled down her cheeks again and May leaned in and put an arm over her shoulder. 

“Oh, Michelle. I knew your story wasn’t over yet. There was too much love between you both for it to end like that.”

“You believe me?” She asked in amazement. 

“Of course, I do. I’ve always believed that there was more out there, and I believe in the type of love that lasts beyond life.” Michelle and let the tears fall down her cheeks and smiled heistently. 

“I haven’t told anyone else about him. I was afraid they would think I was certifiably insane.” May laughed gracefully. 

“If you are, then I am too.” The two women sipped their coffee in contented silence for a few minutes before Michelle couldn’t help but interrupt it.

“Will you tell me more…about Peter?” May smiled and nodded. 

“Did you know that Peter was a really good cook?”

*****

Michelle followed May up to the apartment after she had helped her close the coffee shop before the city’s mandatory 9 pm curfew. To Michelle’s amazement, May’s shop had been busy all afternoon. Peter’s aunt had even put Michelle to work. Although she had no memory of learning, she effortlessly navigated the complicated expresso machine as if she had been doing it for years. Her fingers knew exactly the right sequence of buttons while her mind watched on in bewildered amazement.

The Greenhouse was the first business that Michelle had witnessed still thriving after the snap. 

The reason was obvious. 

May Parker had so much kindness and genuine hospitality in her spirit that the coffee shop felt like a home away from home to everyone who crossed through the door. Despite her own pain, every customer was served with an understanding smile and empathetic eyes. Being around the incredible woman had made Michelle want to stay so bad, she had called Shuri and delayed her return flight. 

She needed to stay here for a little while longer. 

May stopped at the end of a hallway in front of a door with peeling paint and more dents then she could count. Anxiety bubbled up in Michelle’s heart at being in a place that had been Peter’s. 

She had this overwhelming sensation that she was on the brink of something big or maybe something very small…but something none the less. 

Michelle walked into the apartment and was immediately hit with the delicious smell of a home cooked meal. The same style that had transformed The Greenhouse from a brick corner store into a neighborhood treasure was painted all over the space. May had this inexplicable ability to take colors and textures that shouldn’t go together and blend them seamlessly. She did that with people too.

“Ciao Bella” An eccentric man with a pink lace apron called from the kitchen. 

He looked up and noticed May was not alone and immediately came over and hugged Michelle as if they were the oldest of friends. One moment Michelle was in the apartment, the next she was transported into a colorful consignment shop. 

The now familiar sensation of a flashback coursed through her. It had, happened so often over the last three months that it typically didn’t faze her, but it had never happened with something related to Peter.

A memory. 

In her mind’s eye, she was standing in a beautiful clothes shop that was dripping in rich colors and textured fabrics. She was with Lu and May spinning around in a silver dress with the most stunning pair of heals she had ever put on. 

In the memory, she had looked beautiful, but more importantly she felt it too. Beauty was a sensation that was somewhat foreign to Michelle it never seemed to rank high enough on her list of priorities to have been a concern but experiencing it retrospectively she understood how powerful it could be. 

Lu’s voice from the past echoed through her mind.   
“But you don’t want to where it?”  
“No, I love the dress. It’s not that, I just can’t…well, I was looking to be a little less…um, noticeable.”   
Ah, yes. That sounded more like her.  
Michelle blinked back into the present just as Lu leaned back from the hug. 

“I’m so glad you are alright.” He said kindly. 

“You too.” Michelle responded honestly. Lu returned to check whatever was making that delicious smell in the oven and Michelle looked over at May. May seemed to intuitively understand what just happened and she smiled gently. 

“You remembered him.” She stated. Michelle didn’t trust her voice, so she just nodded. May squeezed her hand. 

“I knew it.” Before Michelle could respond, she followed Lu into the kitchen and grabbed four plates to set the table with. Michelle wondered why there was a fourth plate, but the silent question was answered only a second later.

“MJ?” An amazed voice sounded from the door behind her. A short Hawaiian kid was looking up at her in amazement. She quickly deduced from May’s stories that this must have been Ned. 

“Hey, Ned.” The kid embraced Michelle so firmly in a bear hug that it actually knocked the wind out of her. 

“You came back!” He cried excitedly

“Can’t…breathe…” Michelle wheezed out of her crushed lungs. Ned released her, and she took a deep breath before smiling down at the overzealous young man. 

“Sorry, I just…is Peter…” Ned looked behind her and scanned the apartment looking for his best friend. 

She shook her head and Ned nodded as his shoulders deflated slightly. He seemed to have known intuitively just like May had that Peter wasn’t coming back. 

“How’s the memory?” Ned asked in order to change the subject. 

“It still sucks ass.” Michelle said honestly as her own shoulders slumped. “But I was hoping you guys could fill in the gaps for me.” Ned smiled widely. 

“Did I ever tell you about the time that Peter threw up on the cyclone?”

*****

Michelle had tears in her eyes for what felt like the one hundredth time that day. 

Only she didn’t mind these kinds of tears so much.

This time they were from laughing. 

The retired fashion designer, the Hawaiian Lego enthusiast, and the beautiful coffee-shop owner sat around May’s old kitchen table telling stories to the secret agent until her abs hurt. 

It felt so good to laugh. Yesterday, she had wondered if she ever would again.

“He didn’t.” She said wiping the happy tears from her eyes. 

“Oh, he did. It was epic.” Ned said proudly. 

“Please tell me there is video.” Michelle responded which made Lu start laughing all over again. 

“Oh, there is video.” May said mischievously. 

May and Ned had just told the story of the first time Peter had drank alcohol. It had happened the summer before their sophomore year. Peter and Ned had snuck out to a party, drank way too much, and then Peter had ended up lip synching to Rhianna’s Umbrella with full choreography in front of his entire class. Ned and May had vowed never to let him live it down. 

“That was the best thing about Peter, he just owned who he was unapologetically. He always reminded me that it was okay to be exactly who I was. I think that’s part of why he is my best friend.” Ned’s statement sobered the group slightly but the quick change in emotion was old hat by this point in the dinner. They had taken Michelle on a roller-coaster ride of memories giving her glimpses into the life of the boy they had all lost. Some happy. Some sad. 

If she had thought that she might have loved him before, she knew it without a doubt now.

“Peter came over to the shop one day to find May a birthday present and ended up staying for three hours why he fixed my vintage cash register and listened to me tell stories about the fashion industry.”

“The blue cashmere sweater.” May interjected softly. 

“Yes, I had been planning on giving it to May myself but then this skinny 12-year-old boy rolled into my shop and dumped his piggy bank out on my counter. He asked me to find the prettiest thing in the shop that his savings could buy, because he had the prettiest aunt in the world and it was her birthday.”

“He always gave the best birthday presents.” May commented sadly. 

“Remember when he was eight and took a train to Connecticut to get me that limited edition Lego set?” Ned interjected. May smiled softly as a tear fell down her cheek.

“Ben and I were so mad while we searched for him. We scoured the city for hours and even called the police. But then we saw his excited little face in the train station as he explained that he had found the perfect present for his best friend and we couldn’t even bare to punish him.” May excused herself to grab another box of tissues as Ned picked up the story from his perspective. They had used one entire box already.

“It had been a really rough year for my parents financially and they hadn’t been able to get me any presents, which would have been totally fine but when I told Peter, he had to save to day.” Ned wiped away a tear that had fallen from his eyes, May passed him another tissue. 

“I still can’t believe that everyone is just gone.” Lu commented with a defeated shrug of his shoulders. “I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and this would have all been a horrible nightmare, but then I do, and nothing has changed.”

“I still think there is a chance that we get them back.” Michelle said softly. She hadn’t meant to say it but seeing the hopeless looks on the faces of all of these amazing people had pulled the words from deep within her. Lu looked skeptical, Ned looked curious, and May’s eyes filled once more with hopeful tears.

“We should get some rest.” May said kindly causing Michelle to look at her watch and see that it was nearly one in the morning.

Where had the time gone? 

Ned and Lu set out to clean the dishes refusing to let Michelle help while May went to her room to get the extra sheets and towels for her. 

Michelle’s feet wandered on their own volition to a door on the far side of the living room. She turned the shaky door handle and heard the creaking joints of the door as she pushed inside. 

Chills broke out down her arms as she stepped into the empty space. 

This must have been Peter’s room. 

She distantly registered the Star-Wars memorabilia on the wall and the stacks of mechanics and physics textbooks on the newly dusty desk. The room appeared as though it hadn’t been touched since his disappearance. There was traces of Peter’s personality and priorities littered throughout the space. Being here she could almost believe he would come swinging through the window at any moment. 

She knew better. 

She walked around the room in a sort of haze running her fingers over the things that he had once touched. She felt the slight indentions of ink on a sheet full of equations while imagining what he looked like while focusing. She squeezed the soft cotton of a graphic t-shirt that was hanging haphazardly out of his drawers while imagining when he wore it last. She gently petted the cool metal of a contraption that she quickly deduced was for loading webs into his web shooters while imagining sitting on the bed reading while he puttered with his tech. 

Michelle was struck by the energy permeating the space and knew in her soul that she had been here with him. She had shared moments or maybe it had been hours in this place with the boy in her dreams. 

Why couldn’t she remember?

Her feet carried her over to a bulletin board that was littered with web shooter design sketches and tickets from old movies. There were some pictures of him when he was younger with May and Ben. One where he had been wearing an Iron Man mask at the Stark Expo. One of him and Ned with a first-place ribbon at a science fair. 

She almost turned away when the glossy edge of another photo caught her eye. She pulled up a piece of paper stating that he had been in the National Honor Society to reveal the remainder of a picture and gasped. Her fingers pulled the push pin out and brought the picture up to her face for closer inspection.

It was her. 

She had been laughing, presumably at something he had said, while holding a sunflower close to her face. He must of taken it without her knowing.

She looked so happy and carefree.

She couldn’t ever remember feeling as much joy as she clearly had been in that captured moment. 

What had he said that made her laugh so hard? Did he take pictures of her often? 

A tear that she hadn’t even known was forming fell from her eye onto the picture. She held it to her chest to protect it from the others that would inevitably follow. She had resigned herself to the emotions that were raging inside of her fueled by every single thing she touched. Michelle would give herself tonight to fall apart, tomorrow she would be strong again. 

Next, she found a picture of the decathlon team that everyone had signed. 

She found her own hand writing which had simply said, “See you around, loser.”

That made her smile. 

Her eyes caught on a tattered book that was laying half open and face down on the rug in front of the bunk bed. It was her favorite, Fahrenheit 451. She had a copy that looked just like that. When she picked it up and began to flip through the pages she realized that it was her copy. She hated sharing her books, but Peter must have been the exception. Peter’s hand writing was scribbled in the margins beside her own philosophical annotations- answering questions, asking his own, and even *gasp* disagreeing with her on some points. She suddenly had the overwhelming desire to sit and write down all of the reasons she was absolutely right and debate until he agreed. 

She smiled sadly when she remembered that he might never read her defense. 

Her heart panged in a place she didn’t even know existed.

What had she ever done to deserve a teenage boy who had cared for her enough to read her favorite book? To dissect it, to absorb it, and to teach as much as he learned from its pages just as she had so many times before. 

Michelle had never spent much time day dreaming about who she would end up with. There had always been more important things than boys but seeing the relics of a soul that was so clearly matched to her own made her realize he had been it. 

He was the one for her. She couldn’t even remember him, and she still knew it down in her DNA.

Determined to discover as much as she could, Michelle continued to scour the room for little clues about her phantom boyfriend. 

She found a note in a jacket pocket after she had put it around her shoulders and inhaled his scent. The note looked like it had been folded and unfolded a thousand times. 

‘Check yes or no.   
Nest afterschool?’

The yes had been checked and there was a tiny heart next to it with her own initials. 

Who had she been when she was with him? She couldn’t imagine ever being so lovestruck as to resort to the cliché of passing love notes in class but here was the evidence in her hand. Suddenly it didn’t seem so cliché or unoriginal. Suddenly the idea of receiving a note from Peter in the middle of class made Michelle’s stomach flutter. 

She wondered where the Nest was and made a mental note to google businesses with that name later.

There was a selfie framed on the nightstand right beside his pillow. More than anything else it made Michelle’s heart ache for the memories that she had lost.

It was them.

Together. 

Peter Parker smiling widely as she placed a kiss to his cheek right beside his mouth. 

Why couldn’t she remember him? Why couldn’t she remember taking that picture? 

Frustration boiled inside of her anew and she turned around prepared to storm out of the room filled with untouchable memories.

One second, she was standing in the nearly pitch-black room, the next it was lit with the bright light of the afternoon sun. She was in the exact same place, but she knew the veil of the past had replaced the present. 

This was a memory. 

Would he be here?

“Peter?” She called out hesitantly unsure whether it was her speaking or a memory of her past self. 

“Boo.”

“Eeeaaekkee.”

A curly haired boy dropped down from the ceiling landing right behind her and laughing hysterically at how easily he had made her squeak. 

The past version of Michelle reached out and slapped him across the chest while the present watched on in wonder. 

Woah.

He was so handsome. The pictures she had seen didn’t do him justice. 

There was an energy about him that was somehow irresistibly confident and yet endearingly uncool all at once. He had a hope in his eyes, a sparkle of mischief in his smirk, and a kindness that echoed through his laugh. He was wearing nothing but a worn out ACDC t-shirt and a pair of worn boxers, but he stood with this complete self-assurance that somehow miraculously didn’t breach into cocky territory. She knew him to be humble, kind, and selfless from all of the stories she had heard this evening, but she felt as though she would have known it herself with just one look into his soulful brown eyes. 

This was him. She was actually remembering Peter. 

She wanted to cry with relief but couldn’t possibly risk missing a single detail about him. She had already begun cataloguing every single detail away

His eyes crinkled when he smiled widely.

His hair curled fluffily when it began to dry after a shower. 

His lean muscles flexed perfectly under the t-shirt when he had dropped from the ceiling.

His laugh made her heart skip a beat and sent a swarm of butterflies to her stomach. 

This was her Peter. 

This was the man who had captured her soul so completely that he still spoke to her from beyond extinction. 

“I told you to stop doing that! It wasn’t funny the first time and it definitely wasn’t the fifth.” The past version of Michelle yelled testily at the still chuckling boy. 

It was an odd sensation watching her past play out like a movie in front of her, but she was currently too mystified by the fact that she could feel the warmth of his chest against her own hand to care.

Memory Michelle turned to storm out of the room when the boy reached out and slid his hand inside her own effortlessly spinning her around and tugging her against his chest. 

The present version of Michelle gasped at the sensation that coursed through her when the past version collided with his muscled chest. 

“I’m sorry, baby. You’ve just been so stressed about Osborn this week that I thought we needed to have a laugh together.”

“So, you decided to nearly scare my soul out of my body two minutes after I woke up?”

She had woken up in his room? Wait what? Had they slept together? Michelle’s mind started spinning with the possibility that she actually didn’t remember losing her virginity but her past self-spoke again and yanked her back.

“I’m sorry I slapped you.” She said softly. “Ever since you were shot, I’m just so damn on edge.”

“You on edge? Never.” Peter joked sarcastically. “What’s wrong, MJ?”

Her past self-rolled her eyes at his jest but then looked down before responding just above a whisper.

“I keep dreaming that I wake up and you’re gone.” 

Michelle’s heart panged. Her past had no way of knowing that her worst nightmare would become her reality in just a few short days. Peter brought his hands up on either side of her face and then leaned forward and kissed her forehead gently. 

A warm sense of contentment and happiness eased its way through Michelle’s chest making her feel more cherished than she could ever remember being. 

“I’m right here. I’m not letting go.” Peter said reassuringly. Her past self-tucked her head into his neck and he wrapped his arms around her tightly. 

“Promise?” She barely recognized her own voice because of the amount of vulnerability and hope laced into the single word.

“Promise.” Peter echoed. 

In a way, he had kept that promise. Whatever this was between them had been so strong that he was still holding onto her from beyond the grave. 

He hadn’t let go. 

The past Michelle leaned back just far enough to look into Peter’s deep brown eyes. Peter’s were staring back at hers with such determined and ferocious love that it made present Michelle’s heart speed up in her chest. 

One second, she had been watching herself look into Peter’s eyes, the next she was looking into them herself. Suddenly she was in the past, experiencing it all over again and yet for the very first time. 

Her heart was beating rapidly in her chest and the dull hum that always settled in her belly when she was dreaming of Peter was now alive and forceful and almost painfully pulling her toward the young hero. 

Was this what it had been like between them?

She didn’t have time to process it because her hands moved on their own volition burying themselves in the boy’s curly hair and tugging his face against her lips. 

White heat exploded in her belly at the sensation of Peter returning her kiss and wrapping his muscled arms tightly around her lifting her body off the ground into his own. It was more than just physical it was like her soul was coming home and her heart was jumping off a cliff without a parachute at the same time. 

Had anything ever felt as good as kissing Peter Parker? Would anything ever come close again?

Michelle’s tongue tangled with Peter’s and her hand pushed under his shirt feeling the heat of his skin against her palm. Peter’s lips moved across her jaw to kiss a place that made her toes curl and then suddenly he was gone.

She blinked and found herself once again completely alone in the pitch-black room.

The sudden change in light and the utter lack of Peter’s warmth against her left her feeling so hopelessly bereft that she collapsed to her knees.

“Peter?” She whispered into the empty room as tears fell down her face.

“Come back.” Her voice wavered through the thick emotions clogging her throat.

She thought that she had been heartbroken before. She thought that she had missed him. 

She had had no idea.

She had gained a single memory of him and the feeling of loss was so acute it was making it hard for her to breath. 

She felt like there was a fist wrapped around her chest squeezing mercilessly with no plans to let up. 

“Peter?” She whispered again as if saying it loudly would invite fate to play another cruel trick and take him even further away from her. 

How had she forgotten him? How was it even possible to forget someone who she had loved so completely? How had she survived it?

She felt like she was falling into a darkness and there was nothing that could possibly pull her back out. 

Michelle was sobbing in earnest now as the pain of losing her soul-mate permeated through each of her cells. She was being torn apart and she couldn’t stop it. She sucked racking breaths into her lungs just, so she could cry out all the air again. 

Everything was back.

Everything was hopeless.

Everything hurt. 

Just when she thought she might actually pass out from the pain tearing through her soul a thin stream of light pierced through the darkness and fell over her collapsed form. Through tear blurred eyes, she saw a shadow moving through the strip of light and kneeling down in front of her. She blinked up into kind brown eyes that had already begun to fill with tears. 

“Oh, Michelle.” 

May pulled her into a fierce hug and Michelle allowed her caring arms to act as a salve for her tortured heart. 

It was hours before either one felt strong enough to pull away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *grabs tissues*


	4. Limbo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me so long to post! I was traveling and working like crazy, but we're back baby!

“I don’t need magic, I need your arms around me at 3:29 a.m. when the dark is too much, I need you to be real when nothing else is.”  
-A. R. Asher

Peter was sprinting as hard as his legs and lungs would allow him. 

In the beginning, he had started running to try and find a way out. When he finally accepted that the blackness that stretched out toward eternity had no end, he kept running, just to be able to say he could. 

He wasn’t exactly dead. He was in some strange cosmic limbo. He didn’t need to eat or drink, sleep or relieve himself, but he was somehow still alive enough to feel his lungs beg for oxygen and his muscles beg for rest. Scientifically it made no sense. But then again, he was dead and still communicating with his very much alive girlfriend, so, sense and logic didn’t hold much appeal for him anymore. 

He also found it was somehow easier to not go completely insane if he kept moving. If his heart and mind were intent on tearing themselves apart in a continuous battle royal, then at least he could keep them at bay for a few hours at a time by pushing himself to sheer exhaustion. It also helped him distract himself from how desperately he missed Michelle between their dream-world liaisons. 

He hadn’t thought it was possible, but he loved her even more since being here. Maybe it was because she was his only connection to the living world, or maybe they he had always been heading towards this obsessive level of co-dependency, but his heart literally ached for her with every beat. 

He would give anything to feel her arms around him again. To see the deep brown of her eyes as she solved a problem. To hear the melodic sound of her laugh after she teased him about being a nerd. To inhale the scent to of her hair right after she showered. To taste her lips against his own in the middle of the night…

He shook his head and pushed his legs to carry him even faster. Nothing good could come of thoughts like those. He was pretty sure he was already clinically depressed-no need to add kindling to the flame. 

He had been sprinting hard for what he assumed was hours when he felt a tug in his abdomen. Not the kind that meant he was getting a cramp or needed to stop. 

No this was a different tug all together. 

An acute pulling sensation dragged him to a sudden stop.

That’s weird. It almost felt like it did when….

Michelle. 

Peter looked all around himself looking for her where he knew she couldn’t possible exist. He shook his head at his own naivety. Nothing had changed.

Michelle wasn’t here. 

Michelle couldn’t even feel their connection anymore.

He was alone and would be forever, destined to grow old and die with only the whispers of his dreaming ex-girlfriend to keep him company. 

Geez, I’ve gotten melodramatic since being here. I should go out for drama club if I ever get back.

He sighed deeply and then took off in another sprint before being halted to a stop by a shaking voice whispering his name. 

“Peter.” 

He recognized the broken voice instantly. 

Something was wrong with Michelle. 

“Michelle? What’s wrong? Why are you crying?” Peter whirled around searching frantically for the source of the voice. 

“Come back.” Michelle’s broken plea sliced through his heart. 

“I’m here, MJ. I’m right here.” He yelled into the abys surrounding him.

Something was different. Peter heard her as clearly as all the other times but for some reason she couldn’t hear him. 

“Michelle?”

What if she wasn’t asleep?

Oh God. She wasn’t… NO!!

Breathe. 

He would know if something had happened to her. 

But then…how could he be hearing her if she wasn’t asleep?

Oh my God. 

Had she remembered him?

He yelled again more desperate than before. 

“Michelle! I’m here. I’m right HERE!!” 

Her broken sobs continued to rattle softly through the deafening silence all around him. 

I’m right here. 

Then he heard another voice.

“Oh, Michelle.”

Peter gasped.

May? What the hell is happening? 

Am I hallucinating? Have I gone insane? 

No. You’re not insane. Think Peter. Where would Michelle and May be together. 

Queens. 

Was she in my apartment? 

“May! Hello! Can you guys hear me? I’m right here. I’m right here. HELLOOO!” Peter screamed as he continued to turn un useless circles while still engulfed in the dark void that had become his home.

One second there was nothing but back waters and an onyx abyss stretching out as far as he could see, the next they were there in front of him. 

What the hell?

Michelle and May were kneeling on the ground holding each other. He could hear them sobbing over the loud breaths he was raking into his tired lungs. 

Peter couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He rubbed his eyes a few times for good measure, but when he opened them, they were still there. 

This had to be a hallucination. Had the hours of complete solitude finally driven him mad? Why could he see them but not their surroundings? How could he see May?

“MJ?” He said again only softer this time. Neither one responded. 

Peter collapsed to his knees beside them catching his breath in the midnight waters and watching helplessly as the two most important woman in his life cried in each other’s arms. He desperately wanted to comfort them. To hold them. To tell them that somehow, everything would be ok. He wanted to fix it.

That’s what he did. He fixed things. 

Broken dish washer. Repaired.

Computer overheating. Cooled. 

Alternator out in your car. Replaced. 

About to get robbed by thugs in New York City. Handled. 

Getting bullied at school. Not on his watch.

Giant raging vulture stealing weapons. Consider the case closed. 

He was a fixer. He always had been. 

It was as much a part of his DNA as the spider was. Maybe he was born with the unrelenting desire to fix everything around him or solve every problem he faced, or maybe he had inherited it from Ben and Richard.

Regardless, there was almost nothing in the world he hated more than seeing someone he loved cry when he was incapable of comforting them. He despised seeing the tears fall down their faces and hearing the sobs rattling through their chests. 

He couldn’t fix it. He wasn’t there. Even if he were, he might not be able to fix this. Emotions didn’t operate in the world of logic or science. There were no equations for stopping tears. Feelings operated in a totally different plane of the human mind.

But still, he should be there. 

A fresh wave of resentment and hatred for Thanos rolled through his body for what felt like the millionth time since he woke up here.

He should have been the one to comfort them. He should have been able to protect them from the pain in the first place. He should have been able to save everyone. 

He had been so damn close to getting the gauntlet off. 

Two seconds. 

Two seconds was all he had needed and it all would have been over. 

Peter squeezed his eyes shut to try and damp down the ocean of guilt that began rising through his chest. 

He couldn’t change it now.

It happened and now he had to live with the consequences. They all did. 

So, he sat and watched them as a now familiar blanket of self-loathing creeped over his heart with every tear that fell from their cheeks. He had failed, and this was his punishment. He was doomed to watch them uselessly from whatever hell he was trapped in. 

Stop, Peter. 

Uncle Ben’s voice echoed through his mind as it often did when he allowed himself to fall into the darker parts of himself. The parts that he hadn’t spent much time exploring until he was trapped alone with himself with no distractions or reprieve. He had discovered there was a far greater potential for evil in himself than he had ever imagined. Sometimes it scared him, other times he allowed those darker thoughts to keep him company, so he wouldn’t fade away into the limitless boredom and isolation. 

But like always, just when he wanted to give into the ichor of his darkest nature his mind would always conjure up a thought of Ben or May or Ned or MJ and then suddenly the darkness didn’t seem so comforting.

Peter sighed. He missed his family.

At least he could see them for the moment.

This might be it. 

He had to prepare himself for the reality that this was as close as he could ever be to them again. If that were the case, he would soak up every despair filled second of watching them fall apart. 

After what felt like an excruciatingly long time, the two women finally caught their breath and separated. 

“We should get some rest.” May said kindly as she pulled Michelle up beside her.

Peter saw Michelle fully for the first time since she had unintentionally appeared in his reality. 

She was as breathtakingly beautiful as always despite the sadness to the set of her shoulders and the circles under her eyes. Her hair was longer than he had remembered and fell in natural curls over her shoulders. Those shoulders were incased inside his own worn out zip-up hoodie. He liked seeing her in something that was his. It warmed his heart in a place that he had thought might always be frozen. 

It was like she was holding a piece of him.

It also confirmed what he had deduced the moment he had seen May. 

Michelle was in his room. She was in Queens. 

May walked away from Michelle and right past Peter completely oblivious to his presence.

Out of purely morbid curiosity, Peter extended his hand to see if it would pass freely through his Aunt’s shoulder. 

His hand passed through May like smoke and Peter’s heart broke for what felt like the thousandth time that day. Of course, he couldn’t feel her. He was dead. 

He turned unable to watch May walk away but stopped short when her question pierced the echoing emptiness.

“Did you feel that?” May asked bewildered.

“Feel what?” Michelle responded with confusion-completely oblivious to Peter’s presence. 

Holy Shit. 

Had May had felt him?

“May! I’m right here. I’m RIGHT HERE!” Peter yelled even while knowing it was futile.

May paused and for a split-second Peter believed that she had heard him then she shook her head as if exasperated with herself.

“Nothing, I’m just imagining things.” Peter’s shoulders slumped but May hesitated again before leaving. “Oh, and Michelle?”

“Yes.” Michelle turned to face May having finally dried all of the tears off of her slightly red and puffy face. 

“If you see him tonight…. tell him I larb him more than anything else in the universe.” 

Peter felt a tear form in his eye at her statement and wished again that he could wrap his arms around her. 

“I larb you too, May.” He whispered futilely. 

“I will.” Michelle said softly and then May walked directly through Peter as if he was nothing more than a ghost and blinked out of existence. 

Peter rubbed his face in exasperation at himself for getting his hopes up again. He would never learn. He had to stop believing he was going to be with them again. At least he could talk to Michelle.

He had been so preoccupied with his own self-pitying monologue that when he turned and saw Michelle undressing he almost had a heart attack. 

“Uh…” His mouth dropped open as her jeans hit the floor revealing her insanely long legs. 

Peter swallowed thickly. 

Dear Lord, how was this his girlfriend? She could be a super-model. 

Her hands went to pull her shirt over her head and Peter finally snapped back to himself and spun around affording her the privacy she hadn’t know he had been invading. 

A deep blush creeped over his cheeks, and he smiled sadly to himself as he remembered another time he had been in this position with her.

After a few excruciating moments of curiosity, he sneaked a peak over his shoulder just in time to see her pulling one of his t-shirts down her belly. His smile returned in full force. 

She was always stealing his clothes. 

God, he had never wished for someone to fall asleep as much as he did in that moment. 

Michelle laid down and snuggled deeper into what he hoped was his bed. He liked the idea of her sleeping where he had as if to be as close to him as possible. 

Michelle laid there silently, and Peter was left to fully appreciate just how stunning she was. Three months without seeing her had been like starving in the desert. There was nothing more beautiful in the world to him than her lashes fluttering closed on her cheeks and… 

“Peter?” She was still lying there with her eyes closed breathing evenly, but he had heard her clearly. 

“I’m here. I’m right here Michelle.”

“Peter, I remembered something! I remembered you!” She said excitedly. 

“What did you remember, baby?” He asked calmly as he extended his hand and brushed a feather lite touch over her sleeping temple. He couldn’t feel her, and he knew she couldn’t feel him, but it still comforted his soul to perform the familiar motion. 

He had lost count of the amount of times he had come home from patrol to find her asleep on the couch surrounded by books and papers completely asleep. 

“I remembered when you scared me in your room.” The excitement in her voice was incandescently contagious and it made Peter’s heart ache all the more to hold her again. 

“Which time?” He joked. He had scared her a lot. She had been so serious all the time in the beginning. When he caught her off guard and made her jump, she would always initially get angry, but they would always end up laughing until their bellies hurt or kissing until they couldn’t breathe. It had always been worth getting punched in the arm by a special agent. 

“I’m not totally sure but I think it was around number five.”

“Ahhh, a good one for sure. Did you squeak like a mouse?” He teased. 

“Har. Har. Yes, I scare easily when someone unfairly uses super powers to sneak up on me, but that is not the point. The point is that I remembered Peter! I remembered how it felt when we were together. I remembered…. you.” Her voice softened at the end in the way that it only did when she was talking to him. 

He wasn’t sure, but his heart might explode from the relief and joy or hearing those words come from MJ’s mouth. 

“God, I’ve missed you.” 

Peter watched helplessly as a tear fell from Michelle’s peacefully sleeping form. 

“I miss you too. More than you can possibly imagine.” Her voice cracked, and he reached a finger out and tried to wipe away her tear. The tear passed through his shaking finger tauntingly. 

“Michelle, can you see me?” Peter asked despite already knowing the answer.

“No, what do you mean? It’s black here like it has always been.”

“I can see you.” He admitted.

“What? You can see me? Wait, is this just some sort of joke?” Michelle clearly didn’t trust him fully yet even if she had remembered him. 

“I can see you Michelle. I can see your beautiful curly hair fanned out around you. I can see you sleeping in my t-shirt and boxers just like you used to. I can see how your eyes are slightly puffy from the tears you’ve been crying. I can see every beautiful detail about you and it’s torture not to be able to touch you.”

“But….Peter… how?”

“I’m not sure. When you called my name, it woke me up. When you asked me to come back you, you suddenly appeared in front of me as clearly as if you were actually here.”

“I don’t understand how that’s possible.”

“It’s not.” Peter said honestly. They were both silent for a few moments while the possibilities and ramifications of their deepening connection bounced around their heads. Michelle was the first to break the silence.

“I wish I could see you too.”

“Ha. I’m selfishly glad you can’t. I have no idea how I look but I know it is not good. I also have a weird beardy mustache thing happening and I’m 99% sure it is not cute.”

“You can grow facial hair?” Michelle asked with complete shock. 

“Yes, Michelle.” He said with slightly amused exasperation. “I may not be Thor but I am still a man.”

He heard a little snort as she tried to hide her giggling and he immediately decided it was one of his knew favorite sounds. 

“I’m so glad I’m amusing you.” He teased. He didn’t care if she laughed at his mustache every day for the rest of his li-…existence, he was just glad she wasn’t crying any more.

“Wait!” Michelle exclaimed suddenly. “I have an idea!” 

“Ok. What is it?”

Peter waited patiently unsure what would come next and then suddenly Michelle’s sleeping eyes fluttered open. She gasped and then sat straight up. 

“Michelle?” Peter asked cautiously unsure if she was seeing him or if he was once again watching from afar. 

Michelle’s face broke into a huge smile and Peter held his breath in anticipation. 

“Honestly, I think the facial hair is kind of hot.” 

Ha. Ha. 

Wait. 

What?

Michelle was looking at him. 

Seeing him. 

The current that always charged the space between them leapt and crackled as their eyes met across galaxies. All of the emotions and tension came flooding instantly back into his chest.

“MJ.” The word fell out of his mouth in an overwhelmed whoosh of air. 

“Hi.” Michelle raised her hand in a silent wave as a slight shadow of awkwardness fell over her features. 

Peter couldn’t feel anything in the realm of awkwardness.

“You can see me!”

“Yeah.” She said softly. A shadow of sadness pulled her features downward until she was looking down at her toes. 

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Peter reached out to comfort her but quickly withdrew his hand knowing it would only infuriate him to see it pass through her when she was so close. 

“I just. I feel so much when I’m near you.” She said just above a whisper. 

“Yeah, I know. I feel it too, MJ.”

“No, I mean…I just don’t know how I could have forgotten. I still can only remember fragments and moments…I just…we lost so much time…those months before…we could have been together.” Peter watched helplessly as another tear rolled over the faint freckles on her cheeks.

“MJ look at me.” Peter said adopting his no nonsense voice. Michelle’s head and eyes reluctantly drug up his body back to his own.

“It is not your fault. Osborn manipulated us, and he had to torture you with more drugs and hypnotherapy than anyone should have been able to survive just to steal some of your memories. And look, you are already getting them back, despite him. You are the most incredible woman I have ever met…” Michelle’s eyes fell back down at the compliment, but Peter wasn’t finished. He couldn’t hold it in anymore. “And I…well, hell…I didn’t want to say it like this. I had a whole plan. We were going to go to a sunflower field at sunset and I was going to get Betty to steal some champagne from her parents…”

“Say what?” Michelle interrupted. It was Peter’s turn to look at his toes nervously before squaring his shoulders and meeting her eyes. Her ever inquisitive brown irises made him swallow thickly and return his gaze to his hands.

He took a deep breath. 

You can do this Peter. He forced a steadying breath through his lungs and then as confidently as he could let the words fly from his lips. 

“I love you, Michelle Jones.” 

He didn’t immediately hear a laugh or a snort, which he decided was a good sign, so he bravely lifted his eyes to see what emotions were held in hers. 

She was gone. 

Michelle had disappeared from his reality as quickly as she had appeared, taking all of her light and warmth with her. 

“Michelle?” Peter spun around but only saw the black oblivion stretching over the onyx waters in every direction just as he always did. 

“Michelle?” He whispered futilely while knowing full-well that she must have woken up from her dreams and returned to her reality. The one where he didn’t exist. 

Michelle?

Baby?

Had she heard him before she went?

Would she be back?

Had that been it?

Peter sank to his knees and buried his head in his hands. The isolation and silence were so much more acute after having seen a glimpse of life and light again. When he realized he couldn’t feel their connection anymore, irrational anger boiled up inside his chest. 

He couldn’t contain all of the emotions fighting for attention in his chest. Anger, joy, regret, love, bitterness, hope, despair…

He did the only thing he knew how. 

He threw his head back and yelled.

He yelled for everything he felt. 

He yelled for everyone he lost. 

He yelled at nothing. 

He yelled at everything.

He yelled because if he listened just right, the distant echoes of his own voice almost made him believe he wasn’t completely, utterly alone.


	5. Tarot

“ Last night I had a dream that felt like a memory. A glimpse of what could have been. Crossed signals from another life.  
Where instead of all this, I had you.  
And life was exquisitely simple. And we were desperately happy.”

-Lang Leav

 

Michelle’s eyes flew open and it took her sluggish mind a moment to register that she was once again lying in Peter’s bed in Queens. 

“No, no, no.” 

She squeezed her eyes shut to ward off the tears that threatened to spill over and tried to force herself to fall back asleep. She was tired of being ripped away from her best friend in the entire universe. 

Her soulmate. 

Her Peter.

She wanted to go back.

Five more minutes. 

Please. 

The persistent buzzing of her phone against the floor finally registered in her discouraged brain breaking through the thick fog of sleep. After a brief second of very seriously considering throwing the phone across the room for daring to wake her up, she sighed and picked up the chattering device just as the call rolled over to voicemail. 

Her heart rate accelerated instantly when she saw that she had not one, but ten missed calls from The Tony Stark. She vaguely registered that it was odd that he would be the one to call her back in. She would have thought it would be Shuri or Natasha, but not Mr. Stark. As if he could hear her thinking his name from across the globe, his face lit up her phone once more. 

Michelle’s thumb trembled slightly as she slid it across the screen to accept the call. She cleared the frog out of her throat and then put the phone to her ear. 

“Stark.” She stated warily. 

“Michelle. We need you to find someone.” Michelle Jones had no need for pleasantries or greetings on her best day, let alone at this hour. A glance at the clock revealed it was barely five in the morning. 

I guess vacation was officially over. 

“Who?” She responded plainly. 

“Kate Bishop.” Michelle immediately put the phone on speaker and searched the name in SHIELD’s database. 

“Why do we need her?” Michelle queried as she looked through the impressive rap sheet of felonies the 17-year-old girl had already managed to accumulate on her record. 

“Because she broke into a SHIELD compound in Italy last month and stole a piece of technology that Dr. Reed Richards had been developing for NASA.”

“What type of tech?” Michelle asked the question out of habit but was already scanning the incident report when he responded. 

“A prototype for advanced life support in extreme environmental conditions.” Holy Shit. They were planning a trip into the Quantum Realm.

“So, you’ve done it then. You’ve found a way for us to use the time vortexes?” Michelle’s heart leapt at the prospect of them actually having a way to undo the snap.

“Uh…yeah. Basically.” Tony said way too casually.

“Why didn’t that reassure me?” Michelle said dryly as the hope quickly crumbled away like sand.

“We did find a way to get into them yes. We are just having some slight technical difficulties.” Tony delivered the line with his signature charm.

“How slight?” Michelle responded with her signature ‘don’t bullshit me’ tone. She wasn’t in the mood to be charmed.

“Every drone we have sent in stops transmitting the moment it hits the energy surge surrounding the vortex...”

“And?” Michelle prompted noting the way his sentence trailed off at the end. 

“And…we have yet to get one back.” Michelle closed her eyes and sighed. They hadn’t solved the problems with the time vortexes, Tony had just decided he wasn’t willing to wait. He was as predictable as ever and Michelle was just grumpy enough to call him on it. 

“Is there a reason you specifically called me to track down this piece of technology Mr. Stark? Forgive me, but it seems strange that one of the lead scientists would take time out of his work for a side errand with minimally beneficial uses.”

“Uh, no. I just had a few minutes and thought I would get the ball rolling for when we are ready.” Tony said confidently. He was a smooth liar, but he could have delivered an Oscar worthy performance and Michelle would have still known he was full of it. 

“No.” She said flatly. 

“No, as in, you don’t think I should have called or no, as in, you are not going to find Kate.” Tony teased lightly, trying to disguise his anxiety under humor.

“No, as in, I’m not going to bring you a piece of technology so that you can go on a suicide mission and dive into a time vortex to try and save the day. There has to be another way.”

There was complete and utter silence on the other end of the phone and then a long exhale of air. 

“That obvious huh?” Tony said with his signature self-deprecating tone. 

“No offense, but it’s kind of your go to move, Mr. Stark.”

“Call me Tony. Please.”

“Alright, Tony, level with me. Is this really our only play?” There was another long pause before his defeated voice filtered through the line.

“Look kid, I’m standing outside a room full of the smartest people on earth and I would be lying if I said we are not all completely baffled by these vortexes. They don’t follow the laws of science, they don’t operate inside the confines of anything we can calculate. They’re like magic or maybe something else altogether and we are utterly outside of our depth. We’ve tried everything, but the only way we will know what potential lies inside is if we go in. The others are not willing to take that risk, but I am.” 

“Diving in because it is the only thing you haven’t tried seems…” Michelle didn’t finish the thought because she couldn’t bear the thought of disrespecting someone as incredible as the Iron Man, but he finished it for her.

“Stupid?” Michelle couldn’t make herself give assent, so she simply waited silently for him to continue.

“It’s my fault, Michelle. I saw Thanos coming for years and I didn’t do enough to stop it and now half the world is gone and it’s my fault.”

“That’s not true.” Michelle responded automatically.

“It IS!” Tony yelled. The sheer volume and passion behind those two words caused Michelle to flinch away from the phone momentarily. “And it is my responsibility to get everyone back! If there is even a fraction of a chance that diving into a time vortex could bring them home, then I’m going to do it. I have to!” He paused to take a deep breath and then exhaled the next words just above a whisper. “I have to bring them back.”

Tears threatened to spill over Michelle’s eyes as she recognized the guilt and emotion in Tony’s confession from her own heart. He was absolutely correct. The ones that were left behind held the impossible responsibility of bringing everyone back or spending their entire lives numb with senseless grief and soul-crushing guilt. No-one more so than the Avengers. 

No one more so than SHIELD. 

No one more so than her. 

Michelle knew her decision had been made the moment she accepted the call. If there was even the tiniest chance, she could bring everyone back, including a certain curly haired loser who she couldn’t get out of her head, she had to take it. 

“Ok. I’ll get you the tech.” 

“I underst-wait, really?!” Tony’s shocked voice almost made Michelle smile. 

“Yep, just one condition.” She squared her shoulders and braced herself for the inevitable fight even though she knew he couldn’t see her.

“What condition?” Tony’s tone gave way to nervous ambivalence. 

“I’m going with you.” 

Silence greeted her from the other end of the line and then another tired sigh. 

“Michelle, I can’t let you do that.”

Michelle rolled her eyes and tried not to audibly huff as a lifetime of frustration from being underestimated at every turn boiled up to the surface fueled by her latent irritation of being ripped away from Peter.

“Why not? Because I’m a girl? Because I’m a teenager? Not capable enough? Too emotional?”

“No! Of course not, Michelle. I wouldn’t have asked you to go after Reed’s tech if I didn’t trust you fully to get it. Hell, I would just go myself, if I thought that I could actually sneak out without having this exact conversation with Steve or Natasha. I can’t get the tech on my own without drawing too much attention to myself and you are the only person I can trust to get it and not try and stop me because I know you understand.”

“Understand what?”

“That sometimes everyone doesn’t make it out. That sometimes, right or wrong-good or bad, we do trade lives for the greater good.” The words rung absolutely true in her heart and for a split second her mother’s eyes flashed in her mind, then she returned to the present.

“I do understand, so, take me with you.”

“I can’t.” Michelle could hear the uncharacteristic solemnness in his voice and she swore she almost heard the words before he said them. “I promised him.”

Michelle finally lost the battle she had been having with the tears in her eyes and let them fall down her cheeks.

Michelle’s heart clenched in her chest. Of course, he made Tony promise to keep her safe. Of course, that no good, stupidly overprotective, selfless, handsome loser Peter Parker, would be thinking of her and make Tony promise to bench her if things got too dicey. 

She swallowed the lump in her throat that had formed at the thought of Peter alone in that horribly dark place and made sure her voice was a clear as it had ever been. 

“Tony, that’s exactly why I have to go.”

******

After dressing quickly and opting to keep Peter’s jacket, (for practicality, of course, not sentimentality) Michelle tip toed out into the living room of the Parker apartment. Her mind was a virtual hurricane of hope and despair. She was grateful to be in motion and have a plan but she was not optimistic about its ultimate outcome.

Ned’s loud and yet somehow still adorable snoring jogged her out of her stormy thoughts and she smiled sadly at the site of him sleeping on an air mattress. Lu was stretched out on the couch with his feet sticking about a foot over the end and she threw an extra blanket over him before sneaking into the kitchen. 

The sleepy secret agent quickly took out some ground coffee and had to restrain herself from moaning when the smell of fresh brewed coffee filled the small space. The wafted aroma soothed her tumultuous spirit for a single moment. She smiled to herself when she realized she may be developing a bit of an addiction to the substance, but then reasoned that it was necessary considering how few hours she had slept since the snap. 

After searching briefly through the cabinets, she found a stack of disposable cups from The Greenhouse and quickly poured herself a large steaming cup. She had been about to turn and sneak out into the pre-dawn stillness without so much as a wave goodbye, when a tug in her heart stopped her short. 

She rolled her eyes at her own sentimentality but felt instantly better at the idea of leaving some type of goodbye-just in case it turned out to be THE goodbye. She quickly found a piece of paper and pen and scribbled the only words that seemed remotely important. 

‘Thank you for sharing him with me.  
I’m going to do everything I can to bring him back.  
Be safe,  
MJ’

Michelle took one final glance at the eclectic apartment and let a whispered goodbye fall through her lips, then she slipped out into the dark ready to face whatever stood in her way. 

She was going to bring him back.

She was going to help bring them all back. 

This wasn’t their ending. She would make sure of it. 

Maybe they would find a way to control the time vortexes when they were already inside. 

Or maybe they would be lost to time forever. 

Regardless, they had to try. 

She barely knew him, and yet, she knew he would dive into that vortex for her without a second thought, she had seen that in his eyes from the first moment they connected. 

A flash of Peter with a black eye and broken glasses leaning over a desk to introduce himself in a physics classroom darted through her mind and just as quickly vanished. 

Woah. 

Every memory that she regained was bittersweet. Each one was like a light coming on in the dark empty warehouse of her heart where Peter had once lived. On the one hand, the light illuminated another mystery of her past and another reason why she loved him, on the other, it revealed that that place was still just as starkly empty as it had been when she started out on this quest. 

Michelle had just turned down an abandoned ally when a giant ring of sparks materialized in front of her. Her coffee cup flew out of her hands splashing against the concrete as she rolled deftly to the left, drawing her weapon, and crouching defensively against the brick wall. 

When her heart beat calmed enough for her to hear anything other than it’s frightened clambering against her rib cage, she registered the soft crackling of the ring in front of her over the silence of the sleeping city. The light of the orange and red sparks was jarring against the black of the pre-dawn world and through it she swore she could almost make out a staircase. 

What the hell? 

With her gun still drawn, Michelle moved forward to peak around the edge of the strange ring and sure enough, the ally sat completely still, the same as it had been before.

Was it some sort of electromagnetic portal?

Was it an illusion to distract her?

Should she go through it?

Just when she almost wrote the whole thing off as a hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation and extreme stress, an Asian man with a kind smile stepped out of the circle. 

“Ah, Miss. Jones, come in.”

Michelle recognized the man from SHIELD’s personnel file on Dr. Stephen Strange. This was Wong, keeper of the New York City Sanctum. 

“Wong. It’s nice to meet you, but I was actually on my way out of the city.” Michelle said holstering her gun and stepping back from the crackling doorway.

“I promise I can get you where you were going faster than you can, if you can just give me a moment of your time.” Wong turned back and entered the ring of sparks as if it were completely normal to drop a portal in front of a virtual stranger and expect them to follow you through. Then again, maybe this was the new normal. 

She knew she should just head for the QuinJet and start looking for Kate Bishop, but there was something strange pulling her towards the portal. It almost felt the same as it did when she was near Peter, it wasn’t so much a physical pull as it was a gut instinct that was so strong, she couldn’t ignore it. 

Ah, what the hell. I can always have him portal me across the Atlantic right?

Michelle glanced behind her to see if anyone was witnessing this bizarre exchange and then shrugged and stepped through the portal. The moment her feet were both planted on the ancient mahogany floors the ring disappeared casting her into almost complete darkness. 

Wong was mysteriously absent. 

“Uh, Hello?” Michelle spoke into the dark. 

No response.

She jumped about a foot in the air when Wong’s head appeared through a door that she hadn’t even seen off to her left.

“Come along Miss Jones. We don’t have any time to waste.”

“Right.” She started walking towards the man while observing him move his hands in a seemingly choreographed way that suddenly ignited all of the lights casting the sanctum in a warm glow. 

A breathless ‘woah’ escaped her lips at the sight of the ornately crafted interior of the sanctum. Even more impressive than the design, was the overwhelming feeling that the place had an ancient significance. It made her feel incredibly insignificant but somehow still honored.

A floating cup of fresh coffee appeared beside her without warning and almost got roundhouse kicked out of pure instinct. 

Right, magic exists. 

Once she determined the cup of steaming liquid posed no immediate threat, she took it cautiously while trying to keep up with Wong’s quick footsteps.

Cool. No big deal. Just a floating cup of coffee. Stay calm Jones. 

After sniffing it to confirm it really was coffee, she took a hesitant but deep gulp.

“So, have you been having any strange dreams?” Wong asked casually. Michelle choked on the coffee mid swallow at the deeply personal and ironically relevant question but had the presence of mind to shake her head ‘no’ as she cleared her airway. Wong just patted her on the back and then kept moving in silence down multiple intricate hallways to what appeared to be an office. It took Michelle’s overwhelmed and awestruck mind a few moments to realize he had just brought her to Stephen Strange’s (also known as the freaking Sorcerer Supreme's) office and another moment to pick her jaw up off the floor. 

The room they had entered was filled to the brim with artifacts of the occult, the walls were covered from floor to ceiling with volumes from a bygone era, and every inch of every table was covered with maps and diagrams of powers and dimensions that Michelle had never even considered to actually exist. 

“I asked if you had been having any strange dreams. Perhaps about someone in particular?” That time there was no mistaking the question for a coincidence and chills rose up her spine. She hadn’t told anyone but May about her dreams. How could he possibly know?

“What dreams?” She parried while crossing her arms across her chest, finally having managed to stop spinning in an awestruck circle with her mouth partially agape.

“The ones where, I assume you are talking to the young Mr. Parker.” Michelle furrowed her brows. Her general mistrust of all people was setting off warning bells in her mind but her incorrigible curiosity and gut instinct wouldn’t let her leave this room without answers. 

“How could you possibly know about that?” Michelle asked sharply glaring at the mysterious man. 

“Well, I didn’t know for sure until you just confirmed it, but I had a hunch from the cards.” He turned and walked toward a large round desk in the middle of the room.

“The cards?” Michelle questioned immediately following his footsteps while internally debating herself on what she believed was real and what was just circus tricks and nonsense. 

“Yes, they are Stephen’s by right, but as he does not currently exist in this dimension, I took the liberty of reading them myself.” Wong said with a slightly mischievous smile as he motioned towards the desktop.

The sight of the ornate cards dealt in lines across the table caused a fresh wave of chills to break across her skin. Each card displayed pictures that were baroque with luminescent thread and laced with gold. She couldn’t tell whether the light was reflecting off of them or if they innately glowed, but she could feel the weight of their importance in the air. 

She glanced over her shoulder at Wong who was waiting patiently for her to take in what laid in front of her. Michelle wondered if these cards would reveal answers to the questions she hadn’t yet been brave enough to ask, while her more logical self begged her to run away and forget the encounter all together. 

Michelle was, by nature, a realist and discussion of things like ‘reading Tarot cards’ typically made her roll her eyes and change the subject. A few weeks ago, she probably would have stormed out of here calling the man a quack, but that had been before half the world faded to dust and her dead boyfriend had begun appearing in her dreams. 

Suffice it to say, she was slightly more open minded these days.

“So, these cards told you I was having dreams about Peter?” Michelle asked with a quirked eyebrow as her hand was inexplicably drawn to a card in the middle of the table. She couldn’t stop herself from picking up the card and bringing it towards herself for closer inspection. It seemed familiar to her, but she logically knew that was impossible. 

“No, I was simply shuffling the deck hoping to find some clues on the whereabouts of the souls and it revealed The Card of Entanglement.” At the name Michelle’s eyes flipped to Wong’s, and he indicated the card already in her hand.

Okay, that was weird. Probably just a coincidence that she picked up that card. 

“It’s incredibly rare. It only comes around every couple of hundred, sometimes thousand, years and it represents an ancient force.” As he spoke, she found herself believing his words without question, almost like they were an explanation to something she had always understood but never had the words to explain herself. 

The card itself displayed two embossed golden stars on either side of the night sky with a red string twined around them connecting them across the expanse. 

“It’s beautiful.” Was all that she could think to say as she gazed into the mysterious time worn card. For a moment she almost thought she saw the stars move, but then she blinked and concluded it must have been a trick of the light. 

“It belongs to the original set but very few sorcerers have had the opportunity to see it.”

“The original set?” Michelle questioned while still enraptured by the details on the card. 

“The first deck of Tarot cards ever made.” Michelle might have laughed at the preposterous idea that she was holding one of the literal first Tarot cards ever made, but the reverence and awe in Wong’s eyes as he appraised the cards wouldn’t let her. 

“Ok, so what does this card have to do with me and Peter. It’s not like our names are written on it.” Michelle said hating the way she sounded so ignorant but needing to understand how Wong had been able to guess at her connection to Peter without ever meeting them. 

“The card appeared in my reading the day after the snap and has reappeared every day since. I began mediating on it with the Cauldron of the Cosmos and it kept showing me one thing, over and over again.”

“What was that?”

“You, Miss Jones. I had just been meditating a few moments ago when the Cauldron showed me you-walking down an ally only a few miles from the sanctum. It seemed like fate and so here we are.”

“Okay...So, what does this card mean? What is entanglement?”

“Tarot cards are particularly hard to interpret in general, especially this deck. I am lucky I was able to use them at all. They historically have only revealed themselves to the reigning Sorcerer Supreme and beyond that only during particularly important cosmic events.”

“I guess Thanos snapping away half the souls in the universe must have registered on the Richter scale for cosmic events.” She was really trying to keep the judgmental and bitter tones out of her voice, but her frustration was brewing at the mysterious detour. The minutes were ticking by and she had to find Kate and that tech and get it back to Tony, she didn’t have time to be playing in a magic shop- gut instinct be darned.

“Indeed. But I can sense that you don’t yet fully grasp the importance of the cards in front of you. It’s okay. I expected it from someone so young, but I must urge you to listen, really listen to what I am saying.” Michelle wanted to defend herself and explain why she was in such a hurry, but something about the man’s eyes seemed to pierce right through her to the truth of what was causing her unease. 

She was scared. 

She had just barely remembered who Peter was. Just begun feeling a glimmer of the love she must have felt before. Just started to come to grips with the fact that she may never see him again. Just decided to dive into a time vortex on the minuscule chance that it would lead to him. She was just relearning who she was and now this stranger was about to tell her that some ancient cosmic force had been pulling them together all along. 

Yep, she was fucking terrified. 

“The Card of Entanglement is special. It like all of the cards is connected to certain cosmic powers. Some connect with life and death, others with eternity, time, and reality, a few with space, minds, and power, and the rarest with souls. They were literally stitched out of thread imbued with the cosmic powers. The same powers that fill the infinity stones, just in a significantly diffused concentration. Some cards clearly connect with certain cosmic powers others have remained mysteries throughout history. For example,” Wong held up another card on the table and showed it to Michelle. “The Card of War connects with death and power.” Wong placed that one down and picked up another. “The Card of the Afterlife connects with the forces of souls and eternity and so on and so forth. But no one knows exactly which cosmic forces The Card of Entanglement draws its power from and the mystery surrounding it has spawned many a legend between its sightings.” Michelle turned the card around a few times in her hands and then looked to Wong to continue.

“The majority of scholars or sorcerers believe that the card is most closely aligned with the power of souls. Ergo the same power that fuels the soul stone and the soul world. If that is true than its appearance directly after Thanos ripped half the souls out of the universe cannot be a coincidence.” 

Michelle looked back down at the card and swore that she could almost feel a warmth emanating from it. She let her eyes get lost in the array of stars painted on its face as Wong continued to explain its significance. 

“The Law of Entanglement is something that has been observed by scientists, astrologists, and sorcerers alike but, despite their best attempts of explaining it, routinely baffles them all. It represents a connection so deep and meaningful that it binds the very atoms of whatever is entangled across time and space- maybe even realities and dimensions. No one really knows what type of power entangled souls might possess only that they and subsequently this card only appear in times of great need or cosmic upheaval.”

Michelle blinked a few times and then asked the question that had been on the tip of her tongue from the moment she saw the card.

“You think that Peter’s soul,” She swallowed the lump in her thought before continuing. “and my soul…. are entangled?”

“I’m not sure, Michelle. Only you could possibly know that. I just know that I was meditating on the card and the Caldron led me straight to you. That’s why I asked you to tell me about your dreams.” 

Wong didn’t press, but Michelle knew it was now or never. She could lie and say there was nothing special about her dreams or she could tell the truth and bare her soul to this complete stranger. Either way it was a risk, but she knew she had to pursue this. There was no way she could dismiss all of the events of the day as coincidences and if her and Peter were truly connected in this extraordinary way, then maybe this was the path to finding him. 

She circled around the desk and sat heavily in a large red chair lined with velvet. She smiled faintly when a fresh cup of coffee floated up beside her and settled in her hand. After placing the card on the desk and taking a large sip of coffee, she began to recount the dreams.

“The first time Peter appeared in my dreams was right after the snap. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him and he could hear me.”

“Is there any possibility that it was a memory?” Wong asked clearly wanting to search out every possibility before drawing a conclusion just as she did.

“No. At the time, I had no memories of him. I had been drugged and hypnotized by a man called Quentin Beck. Apparently, it is miraculous I even had a mind when I woke up, let alone slowly regained my memories of myself. My memories of Peter remain a complete black hole in my mind. Quentin put a block in my mind and no one seems to be able to undo it. So, when Peter’s voice first appeared in my mind, he was a complete stranger.” Michelle shivered at the memory of the unsettling feeling of hearing a voice for the first time and having it warm her soul without permission.

“But you spoke to him none the less?” 

“Yes, I know it probably sounds absolutely insane, but,” Michelle smiled softly and shook her head at the words she was about to say out loud. “It was like my soul recognized him even though my mind couldn’t.” She peaked up through her lashes to see Wong nodding in understanding. Michelle exhaled in relief that he hadn’t immediately dismissed her experience and suddenly, realized she wanted to tell him everything. 

“After that, I started piecing together our story from mission reports and conversations with people who had seen us together. All the while, he’d been showing up in my dreams for these stolen moments. When I finally decided I was going to lose my mind unless I did something about it, I came to Queens to see if maybe there would be answers here and as it turned out there was. I met up with his aunt and I remembered some things. Small things. Just a few moments not everything, but still.” She took a sip of her coffee to try and control her own excitement at admitting what she had rediscovered. “In my heart, I know him, and I know that I love him. I know that shouldn’t be possible. I shouldn’t be able to love someone without having any memory of the relationship, but I do. When I’m speaking to him, it’s like… there is this energy between us…. I’ve never felt anything like it. I can’t describe it I just know that we…. anyway when I saw him last night-“

“Saw him? Saw him how?” Wong interjected immediately. Michelle had gotten so caught up recalling the overwhelming sensations of remembering him, that she hadn’t realized what she had just admitted.

“After I regained my first real memory, it sort of…. supercharged the connection. I was in his room talking to his aunt and the emotions that I felt somehow connected us. He could see me, but he was still wherever he was, and I was definitely still here. Later when I fell asleep, he told me what he experienced, and I just had a hunch that I would be able to see him too and…it worked. I saw him in my dream.” Michelle wiped the tear that had escaped her eye away and looked up at Wong.

“What did you see? Was there anything around him? Any clue as to where he could be?” Wong’s voice was pitched with excitement, but she knew she didn’t have the answer he was looking for.

“No, it was pitch black. There was solid ground beneath him, but it was covered with a half a foot of water that had no current. It was the darkest back I had ever seen, and it stretched out beyond where my eyes could see. There was nothing there.” Her voice cracked, and she had to take a deep steadying breath to get the next words out. “He was completely alone.”

An embroidered handkerchief floated up beside her and she took it without complaint trying to quickly hide the evidence of how deeply these experiences had affected her.

“So, what do you think? Does that sound like entanglement to you?” Her voice wavered slightly but she still got the question out.

“I do. I am simply in awe of how powerful your connection to Mr. Parker truly is.”

“What do you mean?” She asked with surprise. 

“What you are describing sounds like a instinctive form of astral projection. Only that is an art form that takes decades for the most powerful of sorcerers to master and you two have managed to fall into it accidentally. Not to mention, you did so while you were asleep and without any real knowledge of where the other was. It’s incredible.” 

“Astral projection?” Michelle questioned with a quirked brow. 

“Yes, it would seem your soul’s connection has granted you both the ability to commune on a spiritual plain while your physical forms are separated. Interesting that not even the snap was able to sever the connection. A powerful entanglement indeed.” Wong continued pacing whispering to himself about spells and dimensions, while Michelle tried to wrap her mind around the fact that there was at least a partial explanation for what was happening between her and Peter. She was having a difficult time grasping the concept that there was some ancient force that had pulled them together and still bound them even beyond death, but the evidence was staring her plainly in the face.

Maybe we are entangled.

Maybe we really are meant to be. 

God, If I could only remember than mayb-

“So, being able to see him only happened after you had a memory?” Wong interrupted her contemplation with the question almost as if he had read her mind.

“Uh, yeah. Peter said he felt my pain and heard me crying and then then suddenly he could see me and his aunt. Not where we actually were but where he was.” 

“So, and this is just a theory, it was actually you who projected yourself to him in the midst of a great surge of emotional energy.”

“I guess, yeah, but I didn’t know I was doing it. Hell, I still don’t even really understand what “it” is.”

“If we are operating under the assumption that your emotional connection to Mr. Parker has somehow afforded you limited but impressive control over mystical powers you had no previous knowledge of, then what do you think would happen if you got all of your memories back?”

“Theoretically our connection would be even stronger.” She responded evenly.

“Exactly. With the proper training and the restoration of your memories, you may be able to use this connection to find Peter. You may be able to find them all.” Wong said with barely restrained excitement.

“Honestly, I’m way outside my field of expertise here, but do you really think it could work?” She asked softly. 

“I think it’s safe to say we are operating outside of everyone’s expertise, but here is what I do know. I know that there is a reason the deck revealed The Card of Entanglement to me, I know that there is a reason the Cauldron of the Cosmos kept showing me you, and I know that there is a reason you have been granted the ability to communicate with a person who does not technically exist. So, no I don’t know if it will work, but I know we have to try. And I think we should start with your memories.” 

Michelle sighed at his last statement. SHIELD and Wakanda had tried everything in their power to restore her memories and had determined that it was impossible. They were gone.

“The best scientists in the world with the most advanced technology tried everything in their arsenal to find my memories. I’m sorry Wong, my mind might not be fixable.” She felt that hope that had been coursing through her begin to simmer and looked over to Wong. His reaction to her gloomy words surprised her.

“Of course, they couldn’t.” Wong laughed as if he had just told a joke and then waved a hand for her to follow him into another room all while chuckling to himself and muttering about stupid ignorant doctors. Michelle thought it was an odd reaction to her delivering the news that there plan couldn’t work, but she followed him anyway. 

They came into a room filled with doors that appeared to lead to different landscapes all across the globe. Michelle wanted to stand here and gawk at all the possibilities, but Wong didn’t break stride and went straight through a wooden door. Michelle followed quickly and found herself in a similar yet different time-worn chamber. Michelle was about to ask what his plan was, when he opened another door that led to a balcony outside. 

Michelle immediately felt the humid breeze and then gasped when she saw the glittering skyline stretching out all around her. 

Tokyo. 

She had just walked through a door in New York and arrived in Tokyo, Japan. 

An amazed and slightly terrified Michelle Jones looked up at Wong and he simply winked back. 

“Scientists can’t fix what they don’t understand, that’s why there are sorcerers….”

Michelle looked out over the busy streets below and felt the first stirrings of a quiet fledgling hope settle in her heart as her new friend finished his sentence. 

“…that’s why there is magic.”


	6. Astral

“Say it, and risk the humiliation; scream it, or whisper, write it or paint it on your skin, just say it. All you’re afraid to speak, shaking voice and trembling hands, say it. Pull them close, find their eyes, and say it all.”

-Tyler Knott Gregson

 

“I am calm.” Michelle practically growled through the steamy mist at the monk guiding her through what felt like the 700th mediation of the day. She cracked her neck and huffed out air while trying to ignore how uncomfortable the hard floors of the hut were on her bottom. 

Freaking monks. 

Hadn’t they ever heard of chairs?

She was clearly not calm. Who could blame her though? It had been three days. Yep, you read that right. Three days of nothing but vague lessons and entirely untherapeutic meditations in a host of different locations and climates. When Wong said he could use magic to break her memories free, sweating to death in a hut with a man that looked 300 years old on his best day was not what she had had in mind. 

With each sunrise, came a new door in the sanctum and a new take on spirituality filled with hope and promise. With each sunset, came a new level of discouragement and sorrow at not having found the memories that had been stolen away. 

If she were honest, the real frustration came from the fact that she hadn’t seen Peter once in the last three days. She closed her eyes in anticipation of seeing his sweet smile and brown eyes after a long day of attempting to navigate her mind but opened them to find hours gone and no sign that he would ever return to haunt her dreams. 

Why wasn’t he there?

Had it been a fluke?

Why couldn’t she find him?

Her disheartened demeaner was cofounded by the anxiety she had from ignoring Tony’s mission- the one that had a real (if not absolutely tiny) possibility of leading to Peter in reality. Would she miss the window to go into the time vortex? Would he send someone else to find Kate? Would Kate have already sold off Richard’s tech? 

She didn’t know.

But she couldn’t leave. 

She had tried to storm off the remote Himalayan mountain multiple times after failing to connect to her third eye, her true self, her center chakra, or whatever the hell they were calling it that day, but each time she stopped. That mysterious tug deep inside her led her back inside the hut humbly asking for forgiveness and another chance at unlocking her memories. 

The knowledge that she might be able to intentionally connect with Peter, not just while she slept but whenever she needed to was equally fueling and frightening. With every failed attempt at unlocking her memories and projecting her astral form, she felt deeply disappointed in herself for failing him. Her mind would fill with the image of him in that desolate place, completely isolated and waiting for her to return. 

I’ll find you, Peter. I promise. 

The monk’s kind voice hummed through the steam interrupting her self-absorbed monologue and offering correction once again. 

“Your spirit denies what your tongue confesses, young flower.” 

He is right. I am definitely not calm.

Ok. Deep breath. 

You can be calm.

You are one with the universe.

It’s not like half the universe disappeared and you are responsible for bringing them back. 

Nope, I have no reason to be stressed at all. 

It’s not like there is a fugitive in the wind who possesses technology crucial to getting those people back.

Just breath it away. 

It’s not like it is ten thousand degrees in this god-forsaken hut.

Nope. Doesn’t bother you in the slightest. You love thick fragrant incense filled steam suffocating you with every breath. 

You are one with the universe. 

Michelle could feel the sweat bead on her exposed skin and trickle down her back and had to resist the urge to audibly huff. 

She had started the session fully dressed but quickly shed layers of clothes until she was in nothing but a sports bra and boy shorts. She didn’t understand the correlation between inner peace and sweating to death, but that was none of her business. 

The monk said to take away whichever things from the physical realm that distracted her, so she did. Only now she felt self-conscious on top of hot… on top of anxious…on top of frustrated… on top of inpatient. 

Needless to say, Wong’s brilliant idea of connecting with her truest inner self to unlock the memories was not going well. 

The monk across from her started “Om”-ing again in his signature monotone as if to rub in the fact that she was the worst mystic of all time. Michelle couldn’t help but peak an eye open to see if she was doing anything wrong and could just barely make out the man through the steam. He looked like the embodiment of peace, so much so, that he almost looked like he was floating. 

She squinted. 

He was floating. 

The ancient monk was legitimately levitating off the ground. 

Levitation? Seriously? 

She couldn’t help but stick her tongue out at the show-off in a single act of pure indignation. She would be content with just sitting still for three minutes, let alone literally floating off into the peaceful sky. She rolled her eyes dramatically and crossed her arms over her chest while seriously considering how to escape this sacred mountain monastery without one of Wong’s magical doors. 

Wong chose that exact moment to peak in the yurt and check on their progress. Michelle dropped her head in embarrassed shame at having been caught sticking her tongue out at the ancient man, but Wong just smiled. 

“I’m sorry to interrupt my wise friend, but might I have a moment with your student.” Wong’s voice filtered through the thick steam softly and the seemingly timeless man settled gently to the ground before bowing and heading outside. 

Michelle wasn’t entirely certain where outside was because Wong had just walked her through another portal without an explanation and dropped her off to learn another method of connecting to her inner self. 

No one could have predicted she would be this horrible at it. 

Ok. That’s a lie. She pretty much knew the moment he brought it up that she was going to suck at shutting her mind off and finding total inner stillness. It went against every instinct she had. She was a fighter and a problem solver, not a passivist or an observer.

Maybe she could learn. 

Maybe she would never learn.

Ugh, see? She was literally fighting with herself right now. 

“How’s it going?” Wong asked as he poured more water over the hot rocks filling the space with billowing clouds of steam. He lumbered casually toward Michelle and settled into a cross-legged position on the other side of the soft matt. 

Michelle rolled her eyes. 

“Not so great, Wong. I suck at this.”

“Why do you think peace eludes you?” Wong queried. 

“Uh probably because being still is the absolute last thing I want to do. I want to do…something…anything. I’m going insane just sitting here. What if he is hurt? What if he needs me and I’m just wasting my time with this? What if no matter what I do, I never get those memories back and I never see him again?”

“Hmmm.” He hummed calmly. Michelle rolled her eyes again.

“Hmmmm…is that all you’ve got? I’m falling apart, and you are just going to hum at me?” Michelle was aware that she was losing her grip on her sanity. She felt her control slipping away as the pressure and anxiety closed in around her like a noose. “Isn’t there some type of magical tea or spell you can cast to unlock the memories?”

“Yes, there are but I’m afraid they would have the same result as all of the things those scientists and doctors tried on you….that is..nothing at all.”

“What do you mean?” Michelle forced herself to uncross her arms and assume a less guarded position. Wong seemed to measure her up with a look and then looked down at his hands before explaining.

“I have a hunch that you never lost your memories, Michelle. The mere fact that some have slipped through is proof of that. I believe the hypnotist just confused the bridges in your mind so that you couldn’t access them so easily. But they never left you.”

“So, you’re saying I have all of my memories, I just can’t get to them.” She didn’t mean to sound defensive but there was something in his voice that provoked her to want to fight him almost immediately. 

“Yes…or alternatively, maybe deep down, you don’t really want to.” Michelle’s head whipped up so fast the steam around her furled out and away from her face. 

Anger sparked in her chest at the insinuation that she didn’t want Peter back. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she was so instantaneously infuriated. If he had been sitting closer, she might have slapped him across the face out of pure instinct. 

“You think I don’t want to remember? You think I would be sitting here in a pool of my own sweat in god-knows where if I didn’t want to remember?” Michelle couldn’t help but let the decibel of her voice rise with the irritation that had flooded her system. 

“I do. I also think you don’t really want to connect with your astral form. Otherwise you would have done so.” Wong added calmly. 

“What?!” Michelle full on yelled that time and distantly realized she was probably disrupting countless other’s meditations but still couldn’t make herself calm down. “That’s the only thing I want! I want him. He is my family. He is my best-friend. He is my future. I want to memorize every single second I have spent with him. I don’t want to forget a single detail, not a piece of clothing or a touch of his hand. I want it all Wong with every fiber of my being. I ache to know him again. I ache to be close to him.” She knew she was unraveling but she couldn’t stop herself not even when her voice cracked around each word. 

“It literally physically hurts every second I’m apart from him. How dare you say I don’t want those memories! I want to be with him so bad I would dive into a literal time vortex to see him. I would gladly rot away in that black abyss for an eternity to be next to him. I would die and not even think twice if it meant I could hold him one more time.” Michelle wasn’t sure at what point in that monologue she had started crying but when she finished there were tears rolling down her face and falling on to her heaving chest. Her fists were balled up so tight she could feel her fingernails cutting into the callused skin on her palms. Her entire body was wound so tight with indignation that she swore she felt herself vibrating. 

“Are you angry Michelle?” Wong asked with a mysterious sense of excitement. 

“I’m fucking furious.” She spat back. 

“Good. Now hold onto that feeling and close your eyes.” Wong’s suddenly calm voice threw her off balance. Michelle ground her teeth as the anger poured through her heart and circulated into every vein, but she still sat, crossed her legs, and let her eyes fall closed. 

How dare he say that.

He knows how much I want this. 

I’ve barely slept for three days so that I could spend all of my time meditating on connecting with Peter. 

Ugh, arrogant ass.

“Focus on the anger. Can you see it?” Wong’s voice filtered through her mind but already sounded weirdly distant as if he wasn’t sitting two feet in front of her. She almost responded with a snarky comment about how you can’t see emotions, but then suddenly, she discovered that she could. 

She could see herself in her mind’s eye with molten lava burning through the dermatomes of her body. Every surface of her skin was covered by twisting lines of heat that intersected and ignited each other. It was a little alarming to see herself like that and yet also somehow weirdly calming. Like she was finally getting to know herself.

“Good. Now focus on what is fueling them.” Wong’s voice sounded like it was underwater, utterly diffused and almost difficult to make out. 

Michelle focused further inward as her body trembled with pent up adrenaline and anger. She knew what had fueled that anger before he had even asked her to identify it. She saw the conflagration surrounding her heart. 

It was inextinguishable. 

It was endlessly self-sustaining.

It was love. 

Not just the passionate kind or the romantic kind, but truly love in its rarest and most elemental form. Selfless. Serving. Silent. It had always been right in the center of her chest but now she could see it. She could feel the burn of it. It didn’t really matter that she didn’t have the specific memories that had kindled the flame, only that it was very much alive and perhaps even stronger than ever. 

She was vaguely aware that despite picturing herself practically engulfed in flames she was suddenly completely comfortable. It wasn’t hot or cold. Humid or dry. It was something perfectly in the middle. She was content. Hungry for change, desperate to take action, yearning to feel him again, and yet…. content. 

Strange. 

Nothing had changed, but everything felt different. 

Perhaps this was the elusive peace that everyone had been describing. 

She inhaled to take in the new feelings and perspectives she had gained in the last few moments. 

Then she exhaled, and it was at that exact moment that a memory reappeared in her mind.

A subway station and a boy in glasses.

Her soul had known him even then. Maybe she had been here all along, looking back and guiding herself towards him. Then another memory followed immediately after pouring even more gasoline on the fire smoldering inside of her. 

A cafeteria and a note to a janitor. 

A red ball and a spare sandwich. 

A decathlon bus and a yellow jacket.

A monument and a super-hero.

A coffee shop and a touch on her arm. 

A skinned knee and a shared milkshake.

A sunflower and a smile.

A Thai restaurant and a rooftop. 

A sunrise and a rushed goodbye. 

A cool countertop and a line of stitches. 

A kiss and a mission. 

A shower and a realization. 

The memories started flowing in so rapidly that Michelle feared she might explode. She was experiencing it all at once, the angst, the nerves, the love, and the sensations. 

The way he made her feel the first time he kissed her forehead. 

The first time he took her hand.

The first time he kissed her. 

The first time she kissed him back.

She wasn’t sure her body could contain it all. She felt herself rushing towards a precipice that she was not prepared for. She was utterly terrified but plummeting towards it without relent. 

She couldn’t turn back now.

Not when she could finally see the brown of his eyes and the way the corners crinkled when he smiled at her. 

Not when she could hear the echoes of his voice and the way their laughs weaved together in the dark.

Not when she could feel the electricity of his fingertips as they traced down her spine.

Not when she could smell him on her skin.

Not when she could taste his lips on her own. 

Peter Benjamin Parker. 

She remembered it all. Every single detail. 

She remembered how he was undeniably hers and she was irrevocably his.

She remembered how much she loved him. 

Relief and joy flooded her system at being reunited with the thousands of memories that had made up the blank space in her mind and soul.

She inhaled deeply again resting in the comfort of her restored mind and heart with no intention to be anywhere else but exactly where she was.

Why had she come here? 

Michelle felt herself transcend from her body and only then remembered that this had been her purpose all along. She floated for a moment weightless and untethered, perfectly at ease in whatever plane of existence she had arrived in.

When she opened her eyes, she wasn’t in the steam filled hut or a black abyss. Instead, as if her longing for him had conjured it into existence, she was in her favorite place in the entire world. 

The Nest. 

She was surrounded by an ocean of blooming sun flowers and a sky of twinkling lights.

She closed her eyes again and spun in a circle breathing in the fragrance of joy. She thought she might have done so forever but something stopped her in her tracks. 

“MJ?” Michelle’s eyes flew open and she turned around and saw her favorite thing in the entire universe.

Peter Parker was standing not two feet in front of her looking his typically handsome- if not adorably disheveled- self with a completely dumfounded expression on his face. 

Was it possible he had gotten even more handsome in the three days she had been gone?

She was inexplicably nervous. Like they were meeting for the first time all over again, but this time she knew the ending. 

She swallowed back the lump in her throat. 

“Hey, Loser. Ya miss me?” MJ intoned happily. 

Peter’s lips broke into a wide smile. 

“You remembered.” It wasn’t a question she knew but she smiled and nodded all the same. He could feel the restoration of their connection as acutely as she could. She was sure if anyone else was present they would practically be able to see the electricity between them, jumping and pulling and teasing. 

“How is it that you get more beautiful every single time I see you?” He said the words with such conviction that it made her want to drop her head, but she wouldn’t allow herself to. She wouldn’t waste a second looking at her feet or hiding her blush. She was going to soak up every millisecond of this fleeting time with him.

“Peter, I-“ Her voice cracked and she bit her lip nervously. “I wanted to say…” She remembered that she had been meaning to say the words for weeks leading up to the events at Oscorp. She had known she loved him from the very beginning but had been unbearably nervous to say so and kept bailing on her conviction to actually get the words out of her mouth. Then she had lost her way for a while. Circumstances forced her mind to forget while her soul soldiered on in its commitment to his. 

Now that she was standing here in front of him, or rather projected here in front of him (this was all still a bit confusing), she found herself once again tongue tied. 

Come on Jones. Just say it. 

I love you. 

It’s not that hard. 

You can do it. 

“I love you.” Her head whipped up to look him in the eye and she was shocked to discover he was much closer than he had been a moment ago. She swore she could almost feel the exhale of his breath as he spoke the words across her face. 

Nothing in the universe could have stopped the giant smile from spreading across Michelle’s face, nor prevented her from responding with her own declaration. 

“I love you, Peter Parker.” Peter’s face split wide with the biggest smile she had ever seen and the two spent the span of a few hundred heart beats just staring deeply into each other’s eyes and smiling at each other like complete idiots. 

Their connection hummed in tension filled delight as they both rested in the restored bond.

Peter’s curiosity finally got the better of him. 

“How did you get here?” 

“Astral Projection.” Michelle responded nonchalantly, as if she hadn’t just barely learned the words herself. Hell, she didn’t even know if she was doing it or she had finally passed out from heat exhaustion and this was all actually a fever dream.

“Astral projection like magic, chakras, and spiritual plane astral projection?” Of course, he would immediately connect the dots. He was about the smartest kid Michelle had ever met, but she still felt a bit slighted that she wouldn’t get to explain all of the things she had learned from Wong over the last few days. 

“Yeah, how did you know about that?” Michelle queried.

“I spent a few hours with Dr. Strange on the way to Titan and pretty much pestered him until he told me what he was doing while he meditated.” Peter smirked mischievously, but then furrowed his brows. “But how are you doing it?”

“I don’t think it is just me, Peter. I think you are too.” She said cautiously, while working through the details in her own mind. “Wong thinks that our souls are entangled and that it has somehow given us the ability to connect beyond dimensions and…” She couldn’t finish the sentence because in her heart of hearts she still didn’t really believe it was true.

“Death.” Peter finished her thought for her and she could only nod. “So that is why we can still communicate? Quantum entanglement?”

“Huh?” Michelle was surprised he reasoned to that idea so quickly. “How do you know about that?”

“I read about it one time in a physics book from my father’s office. Albert Einstein observed molecules that could still act upon one another from a distance. He thought it was spooky.” Peter smiled at the last part while Michelle just shook her head in disbelief. 

“You are literally the biggest dork in the universe.” Peter’s mouth popped open at her statement. 

“Take that back.” He teased in a serious tone the same way he had so many times before.

“Or what?” Michelle put her hands on her hips with the upmost sass and tried not to smile at his eyes finally trailing down her body. The way he looked at her made her feel undeniably sexy and desirable, but his next words shook her confidence slightly. 

“I am curious though; did you not have enough energy to astral project your clothes?” Michelle’s cheeks instantly heated as she remembered what she had been wearing in the hut…or rather what she hadn’t been wearing.

“Uh...” She crossed her arms across her chest in a poor attempt at modesty. “It was really hot….and the clothes were….distracting.” She bit her lip again when she saw Peter’s smile. 

She didn’t feel so self-conscious. She felt beautiful and wanted in a way that she hadn’t fully expected to reclaim. She uncrossed her arms and stood in front of him half dressed with a soft smile. The way he was looking at her made her believe she might just be the most beautiful woman in the world. When his eyes finally trailed back up to meet her own, she quirked her eyebrow at him. His lips pulled up in a roguishly handsome smirk and she just shook her head.

“Like what you see bug-boy?” Peter’s eyes immediately thinned into a glare. 

“Take that back.” He took a step towards her and she squared her shoulders-standing her ground. 

“Ya know, I don’t think I will…spiderling.” 

“Ok, that’s it.”

Before she had even seen him move, his hands were tickling her. 

“Stop. Stop.” She wheezed between laughs as she tried to wriggle free of his tickling fingers. It was so distracting and felt so good to laugh that it took her brain a few moments to realize what was happening. 

Peter was tickling her. 

She could feel Peter’s hands on her astral form. It didn’t feel exactly the same as it did in real life, almost as if her brain knew what it should feel like and was assigning the memory of the sensation in place of the real thing. But she could feel it. 

Holy shit. 

Peter seemed to come to the same conclusion at almost the exact same moment she did, and his hands instantly paused on her hips. 

“Peter.” Michelle felt tears well in her eyes from the sheer intensity of joy at being able to feel something she thought she would never have again. The two were frozen standing unbearably close and completely still, almost like if they moved too fast it would all shatter and fade away. 

A single tear escaped Michelle’s eye and Peter’s hand reached out automatically to wipe it away. She held her breath as his thumb connected with her cheek and pushed the moisture to the side. His hand kept moving until it was buried in her hair and then his other joined it.

A few more tears spilled out of Michelle’s eyes but unlike all the other tears she had shed over the last few weeks, each one was captured and brushed away by her favorite hands in the universe. 

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dreamed of this.” He spoke softly, just barely over a whisper, but Michelle heard every syllable as clearly as if he had yelled it. 

He crushed her body to his own hugging her so tightly she nearly couldn’t breath. Then she squeezed him even tighter. 

“I missed you so much.” He whispered into her hair. She squeezed him even tighter in response. 

Their bodies were smashed together from toes to shoulders and she couldn’t remember anything ever feeling that good. She had him in her arms. He had her in his. 

Tears fell softly out of her eyes from the overwhelming sense of joy and peace at being back where she belonged. He pulled back slightly to reveal the biggest smile she had ever seen on his lips and a few unshed tears pooled in his twinkling eyes. He kissed each of her cheeks after brushing away the tears that had fallen.

Then he leaned in. 

The first contact of his lips on hers almost caused her knees to buckle. If he hadn’t been holding her up with his muscular arms, she might have actually fallen. The sheer force of their connection igniting and engulfing her instantly stole the air from her lungs. 

Her body must have finally snapped out of her frozen coma because it only took the span of one heartbeat for her hands to wind tightly around him and crush him even tighter into her. 

It had been months since she had kissed him, but the instincts returned so naturally that she would have sworn it was all they had ever done.

They were back. 

Peter and MJ. 

They were back.

The two only separated when neither one could breath and even oxygen seemed a pale comparison to being in each other’s arms again.

They didn’t separate when the kiss ended only hugged each other even tighter.

“I don’t really understand how this is possible.” Peter whispered. 

“I can’t believe I ever forgot what that was like.” Michelle turned her head and placed a few kisses up his neck to his jaw and then gently pressed her lips against his once more. 

“The important thing is that you remembered.” Peter kissed her forehead and her eyes drifted closed. Those were her favorite kisses. “How did you? Remember I mean.”

“Wong pissed me off.” Michelle rolled her eyes as she continued to let her hands lazily explore Peter’s body.

“Huh?” Peter furrowed his brows in confusion. 

“I guess I wasn’t very good at connecting to my astral form through meditation and peace so he just provoked me, so I could connect through anger and passion.”

“You weren’t good at meditation? Honestly, I’m shocked.” Peter’s dry humor made Michelle crack a smile, but she still rolled her eyes and wound back to punch him in the shoulder. 

As usual, Peter easily caught the punch in his own hand and brought it to his lips placing a featherlight kiss on each of her fingers. Michelle went to look up into his eyes and immediately saw a shadow of something there that she had never seen. 

“Peter? What’s wrong?” She took her hands back and placed them gently on either side of his face forcing him to look at her. Peter dropped his eyes toward his feet and shook his head slightly before responding. 

“We can’t do this forever Michelle.” 

“I know. But it’s not going to be forever Peter. We are going to bring you back. All of you.” Michelle hoped that he hadn’t heard the way her voice shook slightly as she delivered the promise. 

“And if you can’t?” Peter took the curly flyaway that had fallen into Michelle’s face and pushed it behind her ear gently.

Michelle didn’t like the hopelessness in his voice, so she did the only thing she could of. 

She crashed her lips to his and captured his mouth in what she hoped was the sexiest kiss he had ever had in his entire life. After a moment’s hesitation, his hands wound around her hips and out of pure instinct she jumped and wrapped her legs around his waist in a single motion. She knew he would catch her and he did-effortlessly. 

Their connection hummed with irresistible tension coiling and snapping them even closer together. Heat pooled in her core as sensations poured from every inch of her skin that was connected to his. His hands moved down and grabbed handfuls of her ass as she dug her hands even deeper into his unruly hair. 

Goose bumps erupted across her skin as Peter’s tongue dove deeper into her mouth and she couldn’t help the tiny moan that slipped out as his hands squeezed her even tighter. 

Woah.

He is really good at this. 

Michelle sucked in a breath as Peter’s mouth trailed over and began to suck that irresistible spot under her ear. She tilted her head even further back to allow him more access and ground her hips slightly into his rock-hard abdomen. Sparks ignited through her and all the air she had managed to collect whooshed back out. 

She grabbed his head and reclaimed his mouth while continuing to grind into him. In another life, she might have been embarrassed by her wanton behavior but there wasn’t an ounce of shame in her. She was in love and she wanted him and against all odds they were together. Their chests were pressed against each other’s and she swore their hearts were beating in unison-drumming out their soul’s song against their chests. 

It was perfect. 

It was ecstasy.

And yet she knew somehow that it would be so much better in real life. 

She had to get him back. 

She had to save him. 

He couldn’t give up. 

She pulled back just enough to make eye contact. Peter’s deep brown eyes were slightly wide, and his pupils had blown, his lips were red from the assault of her own and a light blush had appeared on his cheeks. 

“Don’t you dare give up on me, Peter Parker.” Michelle whispered the words practically against his lips and she couldn’t help but reinforce them with a firm but chaste kiss. 

Peter squeezed his eyes closed for a moment and when they opened a glassy sheen of withheld tears caught the light of the stars above them.

Michelle was concerned. Yes, there was love and there was light and there was that ever-present glint of mischief in his eyes, but there was a deep pain and hopelessness that she had never seen before dulling their vibrancy. 

“Promise me.” She implored against his jaw as she kissed across it toward his ear. She tucked her head into his neck and squeezed him even tighter to herself with both her arms and her legs. 

She was sure she resembled some type of koala or maybe the clingiest girlfriend to ever exist, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She had to impart as much of her strength, her love, and her life into him while she could. 

“I..” Peter started to respond when everything changed.

She was freezing cold. 

She shivered at the foreign sensation and Peter immediately sensed it.

No. No. No. 

“I don’t want to go.” She whispered into him while squeezing him unreasonably tight as if she could stop whatever force was dragging her back toward consciousness. 

Peter turned his head and kissed the top of her own.

She saw the movement of Peter squeezing her tighter, but she couldn’t feel him anymore. 

“I’m coming for you. Don’t let go.” Michelle had barely gotten the last word out of her mouth when her eyes flew open in shock. 

She was sitting cross-legged in the yurt with ice cold water pouring over her face and body. Betrayal and frustration flashed in her heart as she recognized Wong standing over her with an upturned bucked.

The icy droplets flew off of her mouth as she huffed in irritation and climbed to her feet to yell at the confounding man. 

“What the hell was that for Wong?”

“You must eat, young one.” He said calmly as he set the bucket on the ground. 

“What?!” Michelle couldn’t help but yell at the man. She had spent literal days straight trying to commune with her astral form and minutes after she had finally done it, he woke her up to eat? 

“Your mortal form was weakening. You must rest and regain strength.” The older monk from earlier than appeared from behind Wong. 

When had he come in?

“Though your spirit is invincible, you must still take care of your temple for it is fragile and bound by time.” Michelle glared at the man and had been about to yell at Wong again when she felt a wave of vertigo so strong, she had to close her eyes. 

Woah. 

She blinked once as a splitting headache registered in her head. She felt vaguely nauseous and looked down at her hands to see them shaking. 

What’s going on?

The surge of adrenaline she had when she had woken up was draining from her body rapidly. She couldn’t get her thoughts to organize themselves. Her knees felt weak. 

Where’s Peter?

What happened?

I want to go back. 

That was the last thought to flit through her exhausted mind before the world was upended and everything went black. 

******

The first thing she became aware of was the crackling of a fire. Then the soft fur on a mat below her back. Then a warm cloth on her brow. 

What happened?

Her body was bone tired and her back was uncharacteristically sore. It felt as though all of the energy and vibrancy had been sucked out of her. As it was, she was having a hard time convincing her eyelids to flutter open let alone move any major muscle groups. 

Maybe I can rest a little longer…

Five more minutes won’t hurt anyone, right?

She tried to settle again but a nagging in her heart wouldn’t let her relax.

I am supposed to be doing something.

There was a mission.

The girl. 

The Tech. 

Tony. 

Michelle’s eyes suddenly flew open as she remembered her purpose.

“Peter!” She sat up quickly and almost immediately regretted it as a sharp pounding ache pierced through her head. 

“Ow.” She said grumpily while bringing a hand up to hold pressure against the sore spot on her right temple.

“Ow is right.” Wong intoned from somewhere in the room. Michelle squinted through her tired eyes, trying to prevent as much light as possible from entering while still being able to take in her surroundings. She was in the room Wong had assigned her in the Tokyo Sanctum lying on a matt next to a fire and covered in a thick blanket. 

“What the hell happened?” She said softly as she tried to recall how she ended up here. 

She had been meditating. 

Then she had seen Peter!

Her heart glowed at the thought of him and a small smile tugged at her lips. 

Then she had been soaking wet and cold. 

Then…

She must have fainted. 

Odd. Michelle had never fainted in her life. 

“Your journey was too long Michelle. I was worried for a time that I wouldn’t be able to bring you back.” Wong intoned softly as he laid a tray of food beside her. 

She hadn’t thought about it until the moment the food was in front of her, but she was starving. Her stomach growled audibly, and she quickly dove into the bowl of what she hoped was stir fry and rice. 

Oh my God. This has to be the best food on the planet. Have I ever been this hungry?

Wong looked incredibly pleased that she was eating but she was too focused on food to read deeper into that. 

“What time is it?” She asked with a mouth full of food. There was no telling how much time she had wasted by passing out. She needed to get moving. 

“It is 10pm.” Ok, that’s not terrible. She had started that meditation at about three in the afternoon so…

“On Sunday.” Wong finished. Michelle almost choked at his words. It had been Thursday when she entered that yurt. 

“Don’t screw with me Wong. How could it possibly be Sunday?”

“You were in the astral realm for nearly three days Michelle. We tried every spell and trick we could to lead you back to the mortal world, but you were gone. Wherever you went we couldn’t reach you.”

Michelle shook her head in confusion and got shakily to her feet searching for her phone. When she finally located it and got the throbbing in her head under control enough that she thought she might not puke, she lit up the screen.

He was right. It was Sunday. 

“Wong, I don’t understand. I was in there for minutes. Not days.” 

“The astral realm is not our own. It does not have to obey our laws of time and space. It sometimes mimics and mirrors our own, but it is its own separate place.” Wong said gently as if explaining a complicated concept to a toddler. 

She may as well be a toddler because she felt as though she was on the verge of tears and even though she had just woken up…she could really use a nap. 

Pull yourself together Jones. You don’t have time for this. 

Right. Michelle started quickly gathering her things wondering how quickly a QuinJet could get to Tokyo as she summoned it from her watch.

God, her body ached. She felt like she had been run over by a truck…repeatedly. 

She was so tired. 

“I assume you remembered then?” Wong’s question stopped her in her tracks and tears instantly formed in her eyes.

Yes, she had found her memories. 

She had found her Peter.

It was equal parts bliss, relief, and unquenchable agony. She had thought she had missed him before. She had thought she was mourning his loss before. 

She had had no idea. 

The love she felt for him was directly proportional to the pain she felt at their potentially permanent separation. In other words, it was excruciating. It took her breath away.

Speaking of breath. She was suddenly having a difficult time catching hers. As the reality of her predicament settled fully into her now restored mind, her field of vision closed down to a very small tunnel. Her palms began to sweat, and she felt her body start to tremble.

The pain was simply too much. 

It wasn’t just Peter. 

It was her father. 

Director Fury. 

Dr. Anderson. 

Emily Osborn.

Peter was the person who helped her reconnect to the world after she had shut it out because of her mother. He was the one who had taught her that it was ok to lean on other people. It was okay to love. 

Now, that she remembered him. She remembered how deeply entwined she had become in the lives of the many amazing people surrounding her and with that memory there was even more pain. 

She couldn’t shut it out anymore. It demanded to be felt and felt it was. 

She knew the pain of having a bullet rip through her chest first hand and that experience had nothing on the crushing weight around her chest at that moment. 

I can’t do this. 

I can’t be here without them. 

I need him. 

“Michelle? Michelle breath. In through your nose….. out through your mouth.” Wong’s voice was muddled and distorted as if he wasn’t standing directly in front of her. 

“Michelle! Look at me.” His raised voice and frantic shaking of her shoulders finally caught her attention enough to drag her eyes toward the anxious man. “We are going to count to ten together, ready?”

Michelle felt her head bob ominously from the lack of oxygen her ineffective breathing pattern was supplying her with. 

“Michelle! Count!” She barely managed to nod while fighting the overwhelming desire to curl up in a ball and cry until she simply stopped breathing all together. 

The walls were closing in. 

Her knees felt week. 

Why couldn’t she catch her breath?

She was so tired. She felt the moment her chest stopped moving in and out. She felt the burn in her lungs as they cried for relief. Her field of vision went nearly completely black.

Maybe if she could just rest for a little while…

‘No.’

Her subconscious screamed at her. 

‘Not an option.’ 

The strongest part of her soul declared.

‘You have to fight.’ 

Her own voice bounced through her head refusing to allow her to give up. 

‘Get back in the ring, Jones.’

She heard the echoes of memories from a childhood marked with days on the mat literally fighting for the respect of her peers and the approval of her absentee parents.

Michelle Jones was a fighter. She didn’t give up. She didn’t need to rest. She needed to fight. 

“Come on MJ.” Peters voice pleaded. 

“Chin up, Michelle.” Nick fury commanded.

“Don’t give up, Little Star.” Her father begged.

“Just breath.” Dr. Anderson’s voice coached.

“One.” She managed to barely whisper through chattering teeth after sucking a breath into her screaming lungs.

“Good. Keep going Michelle.” Wong encouraged. 

“Two...”

“There you go.”

“Three...”

By the time she made it to ten, her breathing had mostly returned to normal and she stood equal parts shocked and confused in front of Wong as tears streamed steadily down her face. 

She had just had a massive panic attack. 

Strange. 

Anxiety had never been an issue before.

“That has never happened to me.” She felt self-conscious and weak for breaking down in front of him and had this nagging feeling that she needed to explain herself. 

She didn’t break. 

She was supposed to be in control. 

“Traumatic events can cause a chain reaction of symptoms. Especially if you experience them all at once.” Wong gently eased her embarrassment. 

“I found him.” Michelle said after a few long minutes of just breathing deeply and trying to process all of the things that had come rushing at her at once in a more orderly fashion. 

“Yes, I can see that.” Wong intoned kindly. 

“No, Wong, I mean I found him. In the Astral realm or wherever it is that our souls take us. I found him.”

“You spoke with him? Did he give you any clues as to where he might be?” Wong asked excitedly. 

“No. He doesn’t know. There is nothing there. But…”

“But what?” Wong questioned. 

“I don’t think he’s dead. I don’t think any of them are.” Michelle admitted just over a whisper as if saying it too loud would invite Thanos himself into her room. 

“Michelle, the infinity stones are some of the most powerful forces in the universe. They would not be so coveted after if they did not truly have the power to destroy.”

“No, I get that. I just…I don’t think they are the only powers.” Michelle wasn’t even entirely sure where these ideas were coming from, but she knew in her gut that there were answers just beyond her conscious mind. 

“Of course. But that doesn’t help us reverse what Thanos did.” Wong reasoned logically.

How do we know? Michelle’s mind questioned immediately, but she didn’t voice her disagreement. The idea bouncing around in her mind was too fresh and too easily discouraged to share just yet. 

“Wong?”

“Yes, Michelle.” 

“When you are in your astral form can you touch other things there?”

Wong’s eyebrows furrowed.

“No, I cannot. There are legends of sorcerers so strong they could manipulate the astral plane- but no one has seen any evidence of that possibility in thousands of years. It is called astral manipulation and it is even more difficult to fully master. Why do you ask?”

“No reason.” Michelle hid her small smile by turning around and finishing to collect the few things she had brought with her and slung her backpack over her shoulder. 

She had for sure done some ‘astral manipulation’ with Peter, but Wong didn’t need to know about that. 

She bit her lip as she remembered his arms around her. 

She had never once in her life had so many conflicting and battling emotions in her body at one time. 

Was she going insane?

Probably. 

“Do you think it is wise to travel so soon after your collapse?” Wong stood in her path blocking her exit. 

“I have to do something.” Michelle said simply as if that was explanation enough. 

“I understand, but Michelle. You just left the mortal world for nearly three days and then collapsed from the sheer toll it took on your body and then had a panic attack that nearly stopped you from breathing the moment you woke up.”

True. 

She was kind of a mess right now. 

She knew she should rest and gain control of her emotions.

But, she couldn’t waste any more time. 

“I’ll rest on the flight Wong. I have to find Kate Bishop. I have to get that tech to Tony.” 

“You will be no good to him if you are dead, young one.” Michelle squeezed her eyes closed again as a fresh throbbing pain shot through her head. Her hand rubbed at her forehead in a futile attempt to dissipate some of the pain. She had never had a migraine before, but she was fairly certain this was it…and it sucked. 

Michelle squared her shoulders and rose to her full height attempting to personify the sheer determination that had taken up residence in her heart. 

“I have to do this.”

Wong’s eyebrow furrowed slightly as he appraised her. Michelle prepared herself for a further fight but what he did next surprised her. 

He reached into his pocket and pulled out an ancient time piece and placed it in her hand curling her fingers around it with his own. The clock face was time warn and cracked at the edges but the hands in the clock ticked steadily away. 

“Stephen used to get lost in the astral realm for hours and days. He would lose track of time, though wherever you were seemed to have accelerated that conundrum exponentially. This watch is spelled to keep time with our world even when it enters another dimension. If you try and see Peter, take this with you.” He was quiet for a moment just looking at the clock face with her and getting lost in the peaceful ticks and tocks. 

“You are far too important to this world to get lost in time.”

Michelle felt a chill roll down her spine at the words. That idea that had been just on the edge of her consciousness nagged at her again before slipping into oblivion. 

Strange. 

Acting on pure instinct, Michelle threw her arms around Wong and hugged him tightly. 

“Thank you for bringing him back to me.” She said earnestly-wishing she had better words to fully express her gratitude. Wong’s only response was to squeeze her a little tighter. Her watch buzzed on her wrist and she knew that her ride had arrived. 

It was time to go.

Michelle released Wong and immediately started out the door to the roof without looking back. She boarded the jet as she had done so many times before, but never with as much conviction as she had now. 

She would find him. 

She would bring him home. 

She would save Peter Parker, even if it was the last thing she ever did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can we all just talk about the Avengers:End Game trailer????? 
> 
> I'm going to need more tissues.


	7. Inhale

“She was fierce, she was strong, she wasn’t simple. She was crazy and sometimes she barely slept. She always had something to say. She had flaws and that was ok and when she was down, she got right back up. She was a beast in her own way, but one idea described her best, she was unstoppable, and she took anything she wanted with a smile.” 

-R.M. Drake

Inhale. 

Exhale. 

Just breathe.

Michelle didn’t keep her promise to Wong. She tried to rest her eyes on the flight over the pacific but no matter what she did her mind kept bringing up worst case scenarios and depressing endgames. 

After a while, she simply gave up on chasing sleep and started scanning the dossier on Kate Bishop instead. 

Her network of agents had located Kate while she was astral projecting or whatever the hell she had been doing. Thank goodness for the agents who worked double time to find Kate. It was a huge relief to know she could go straight to the tech and not have to waste time chasing it all over Europe first. Being acting director of SHIELD definitely had its fringe benefits. 

She had wasted enough time in her personal dreamland. 

Obviously, she wouldn’t trade the stolen moments with Peter for anything but losing that much time had been dangerous.

Inhale.

Exhale.

She took several deep breaths to ease the disquiet in her mind. 

It was minimally effective, so she went back to the documents on her tablet.

Kate’s journey to Greece had been erratic. The young thief had bounced between countries and crossed boarders illegally without seemingly any pattern or intention. She was no doubt trying to find a buyer while attempting not to get caught by the dozen or so international intelligence agencies currently tailing her. Too bad Michelle’s team hacked all of those agencies and compiled their data allowing them to triangulate her first. 

That was what made SHIELD so effective. They rarely dabbled in international squabbles or got distracted by a sense of nationalism. SHIELD was in the business of protecting earth-it was a far bigger game than the one the C.I.A., the KGB, and MI-6 were playing.

Michelle shook her head. If it were under any other circumstances, she would absolutely love this mission. This was her favorite kind. 

Agent verses enemy. 

One on one. 

An even playing field. 

Unfortunately, the stakes she had in this mission had replaced the typical high of adrenaline with a bone deep fear and an absolute refusal to fail. Additionally, she was now acutely aware of the fact that she couldn’t fully trust her mind and body. 

In training, they had warned agents about the dangers of anxiety disorders. She had read countless stories about incredible agents who were sidelined because of traumatic events. They would have panic attacks in the field and become liabilities to themselves and to the agency. 

They ended up pushing papers behind a desk until retirement. 

Michelle shuttered. She hated paperwork. 

She had never understood anxiety attacks before. She didn’t understand how a person could get so lost in their own mind that they couldn’t breathe or move. 

Now she understood all too well. 

She was just praying that it had been a one-time thing. 

If she were lucky that had been an acute reaction to the trauma of regaining her memories and feeling all of her loved ones ripped away all over again. Unfortunately, there was a voice deep inside her chest warning her that she would have to face those demons again. 

She just hoped it was after she found the tech.

Inhale. 

Exhale.

Eventually she would have to stop and process all of the things that had happened to her. 

The torture. 

The amnesia. 

The dusting. 

The constant pull of her heart to leave this world behind and stay with Peter permanently. 

Woah. That was an intense thought. 

She couldn’t deny its appeal though. 

No. You are acting director of SHIELD. You have responsibilities beyond one life. In fact, there were millions of lives on the line. 

No pressure. 

Anxiety sparked in her heart once again and she quickly took Wong’s parting advice. 

“Just breathe, young one.”

Inhale. 

Exhale.

One breath at a time.

One mission at a time.

All she could do was keep moving forward.

She would walk in without the tech. She would walk out with it. 

There was no back-up plan. 

There was no other option. 

Whatever the cost, she would pay it. 

She stood from the pilot’s seat and stretched her aching muscles and sore back before turning and donning her updated tactical suit. Shuri had already enhanced the suit for Michelle when the dusting happened. 

Half of the young agent had hoped she wouldn’t need it, the other half couldn’t wait to try it out. 

While Michelle had been trained and fully believed that an agent’s greatest weapon was their own mind, she was glad to have a little extra protection considering her current mental state. 

By current mental state, she of course meant the total cluster fuck of emotions and anxieties that were vying for her attention every second of the day.

Focus. 

Inhale. 

Exhale.

The suit had the same sleek design as the original but was even more durable and resistant to puncture. The vibranium batons crossed over her back could now harness energy and discharge it on command. Her weapons tucked on either side of her chest were not loaded with lethal force (she couldn’t bear the thought of any more death), but the concoction of herbs and poisons inside each dart would stop any enemy in their tracks. Shuri had updated her grappling settings, added a thigh strap on each leg for knives, and attached a few explosive devices to the sides of the soles of her combat boots. 

In other words, she was ready for whatever or whoever this Kate Bishop character was. 

Michelle tied her hair back into a tight French braid and then swung a leg over her bike settling into position. Her hands felt the familiar texture of the leather on the handle bars and it immediately calmed her tumultuous mind. 

She could do this. 

She was Michelle Freaking Jones. 

Agent of SHIELD. 

She kicked the ignition and felt the native vibrations of the engine rumbling to life beneath her.

Inhale.

Exhale. 

Excitement sparked in her heart as the altitude meter on the jet dropped lower and lower. Kate was just a few blocks away hidden under a false identity in a posh hotel facing the Mediterranean Sea. 

Inhale. 

300 feet. 

Exhale. 

200 feet. 

Inhale. 

100 feet. 

The back of the jet opened to reveal the ground speeding by below her. 

50 feet. 

Exhale. 

30 feet. 

She squeezed the handles and sped out of the jet connecting with the ground and immediately speeding into the abandoned ally way. 

The hotel came into view after only a few seconds and Michelle sped around the back avoiding every traffic monitor and security camera effortlessly. 

She brought her bike to a silent stop behind a dumpster and moved into the hotel without a moment’s hesitation. It was nearly one in the morning, so the kitchen was empty save for a few employees washing dishes and listening to 80’s rock. Michelle silently moved behind the oblivious dishwashers curling her body into the compact dumbwaiter and sending herself to the 20th floor. 

Inhale.

Exhale. 

Inhale. 

Exhale. 

Light poured into the tiny space as the door opened and the black-clad agent slipped into the abandoned hallway like a shadow. She floated without a sound to the other end of the hall and stood briefly in front of room 2020. 

Kate’s room.

She could hear her heart beating steadily in her ears as the adrenaline heightened her senses. Michelle took the key card she had forged on the jet and let herself into room 2019. She moved past the sleeping couple in the bedroom and slipped onto the balcony completely undetected. 

Michelle turned toward the neighboring balcony and assessed the 5-foot jump between them. She was up insanely high, but not even her fear of heights could stop her from climbing up onto the railing. 

Inhale. 

Exhale. 

Michelle jumped and soared across the open space before rolling softly into a crouched position outside Kate’s room. 

Inhale.

Exhale. 

She picked the lock to the door efficiently and then drew her batons off her back. 

Inhale. 

Michelle held her breath and prayed that it wouldn’t squeak as she slid the door open wide enough that she could squeeze through.

Phew. Michelle was in the process of releasing a breath when she heard the snap of a bow string. 

Thankfully years of training caused her batons to swing upward just in time to deflect the arrow that had been aimed directly at her head. 

Michelle summersaulted into the room and dodged two more arrows before finally catching a glimpse of the mysterious girl from her hiding spot behind the bed. 

Michelle’s foot had hit something, and she looked down and saw a quiver it arrows. The crouching agent had to admit that bow and arrow was a weird choice, but who was she to judge.

The girl was tall like Michelle but more muscular in build. Her feet were bare, and she was only dressed in a dirty white t-shirt and a pair of black cargo pants. Her long brown hair was cascading down her back falling haphazardly from her ponytail. Michele could hear the quick panting breaths coming from behind the door jam of the bathroom. 

She didn’t seem like a hardened criminal. 

She seemed like a teenage girl who had somehow gotten mixed up in the wrong crowd. 

She seemed terrified. 

This was already turning out to be more complicated than Michelle had anticipated or could handle. 

SHIELD’s file on the fugitive was minimal at best. None of the other agencies had any relevant information- just a name and a rap sheet that would impress even Scott Lang. 

Michelle returned her batons to her back before peeking around the edge of the bed to get a better look at the other woman. An arrow whisked so close to her face that she felt the air of it as it passed her by and sank into the wall behind her. 

Impressive aim.

Excellent speed. 

She had definitely been trained. 

Michelle had been trained too. 

The crouching agent grabbed one of the smaller explosives from her boot and threw it over her shoulder into the bathroom. 

Kate dove out to avoid the blast and Michelle dove at the exact same time kicking the fugitive in the stomach, ripping her bow out of her grasp, and then rolling deftly back to her feet. 

“Sorry about this.” 

Michelle took the bow and snapped it in half over her knee before tossing the pieces to either side. Kate yelled in frustration and charged directly into Michelle’s stomach briefly knocking the air out of her lungs. 

Damn, she really was strong. 

Kate pushed Michelle back until her back connected with the wall forcefully knocking the art to the floor and rattling the precariously hung chandelier. 

“Do you mind keeping it down, I’d rather not draw any more attention to us than necessary.” Michelle said sarcastically knowing damn well everyone in the hotel had heard that explosion and that the police were probably already on their way. 

She didn’t know where this flippant battle demeanor had come from, but she had a sneaking suspicion she had picked it up from a certain curly haired spider.

Michelle’s unfrazzled exterior seemed to only infuriate Kate further and she pulled back her fist. Michelle easily dodged the punch allowing Kate’s hand to connect with the wall with an audible crunch. 

“Ouch. You are probably going to want to ice that.” Kate literally growled at her in response.

Michelle ducked to the left and easily maneuvered out of her trapped position but not before Kate stuck her leg out and tripped her escape. 

Scrappy. 

It was something she would have done if she had known she was outmatched, and Kate was definitely outmatched.

Michelle rolled just in time to dodge a kick to the ribs and then dealt Kate a dose of her own medicine by swinging her right leg out and sweeping the girls feet out from under her. 

“Oh, I’m sorry I have got to watch where I am going.” Michelle jested as Kate landed with a loud thud. The upended girl lunged for the quiver of arrows that were stashed under the bed, but Michelle anticipated it and kicked it out of reach.

Kate clambered to her feet and immediately started throwing punches toward Michelle. She was strong and had clearly been trained in kickboxing, but Michelle easily dodged her attacks and parried her kicks. It was actually sort of fun to be fighting again and part of Michelle wanted to play with the girl a little longer but ultimately, her more practical side won out. 

After all, she was on the clock. 

Michelle dodged two more punches before grabbing Kate’s right wrist in midair, forcing her thumb into the fleshy tissue there, and then twisting until she heard the snap of the bone breaking. It was a cheap move to take out Kate’s dominant hand, but Michelle didn’t have time to waste and Kate needed to know who was in control of this situation. 

“Ahhhhh.” Kate yelled in pain. Michelle punched her square in the face once to silence her. The impact sent her to her knees. 

“Where is Richard’s tech?” Michelle asked as soon as Kate hit the floor. 

“Fuck you.” Kate spat back barely below a yell.

Fair enough. 

Michelle punched the girl in the face again-this time with more force. 

Inhale.

Exhale. 

“Where is the tech?” Michelle asked again with utter calmness. 

“Who the hell are you?” Kate spat back with venom. 

“I’m an agent of SHIELD and a lot of lives are counting on me finding what you stole. Where is it?” Kates blue eyes went wide at the word SHIELD and then her face paled slightly. 

Huh. 

Strange reaction for someone who had been running from the feds their entire lives. 

Kate dropped her head and cradled her broken wrist. Michelle finally saw the fight go out of her shoulders and knew she had her exactly where she needed her. 

“I don’t have it.” Kate said the words almost shamefully and with a sincerity that Michelle immediately recognized as the truth. 

“What happened?” Michelle questioned in a less aggressive tone than her previous queries. 

“It was stolen from me in Athens by a group of Russian arm’s dealers. I swear I did everything I could to get it back, but they had the numbers and the resources, and I couldn’t beat them.” Kate had looked up at Michelle with her piercing blue eyes as if to implore her to believe her. Michelle did believe her, but unfortunately that didn’t help her with the tech. 

Frustration at the further delay sparked through Michelle and she had to force down the wave of annoyance that rose up in her towards the girl.

She took a deep breath to let that annoyance go. 

She never wanted to hurt someone out of anger, only necessity. 

Inhale.

Exhale.

“What would Russian arms dealers need with life support technology?” Michelle questioned. 

“I have no idea, maybe they were hired muscle.” That was definitely possible. 

Michelle was beginning to like this girl. They thought about things the same way. She would make a fantastic agent if she ever decided to give up her nefarious side job as a crook. 

“Do you have any enemies that I need to know about?” Michelle queried. Kate looked out the window with a distant expression, clearly remembering exactly who her enemies were. 

“Not that would steal this. I think I may have actually beat these goons to their mark. Otherwise there is no way they would have been able to mobilize a team on such short notice. They ambushed me almost as soon as I got the tech out of the country.” Michelle nodded. That was one hell of a coincidence. 

“And you?” She asked.

“What about me?” Kate said defensively.

“What did you want with the technology?” Michelle clarified. 

“Maybe I was bored.” Kate said with false bravado and a stubborn expression. Michelle noted how she flinched when she shrugged. She regretted breaking the girl’s wrist, but it had been a necessary evil as they would probably still be fighting around the room if she hadn’t. 

Michelle crossed her arms over her chest and raised her eyebrow. The two young women spent the span of about three breaths staring each other down before Kate finally sighed and rolled her eyes. 

“I was trying to find someone.” The answer surprised Michelle. She had figured that Kate had needed a large score and intended to sell off the tech to the highest bidder. 

“Ya know? I always steal millions of dollars of groundbreaking technology when I’m looking for someone too.” Michelle said dryly.

“You’re hilarious.” Kate deadpanned but then sighed in resignation. “I needed to score big enough that it would register on SHIELD’S radar.” A chill ran up Michelle’s spine at Kate’s admission. She had the overwhelming sensation that she was missing a large piece of the puzzle, but her cluttered and stressed brain couldn’t reason out what it was. Fortunately, Kate didn’t leave her without an explanation.

“I was trying to find Ronin. He disappeared after the dusting and I....well, I owe him my life and I needed to make sure he was okay.” Michele squinted as she mentally scanned the list of agents who had survived the dusting. 

There was only one possible option.

“Are we talking about Clint Barton? Short, blonde, drinks excessive amounts of coffee and thinks he is Robinhood?”

“Uh yeah. That sounds like him. I only knew him as Ronin though.”

Michelle vaguely remembered reading intel reports on a vigilante that had been spotted around the globe throughout the last year. Clint was supposed to be on house arrest after Berlin and his SHIELD profile had him listed as retired. Michelle remembered thinking she was surprised he had stayed out of the action for as long as he did.

Apparently, he had just been getting his hero fix through more secretive means. 

“He trained you.” It wasn’t a question because it was the only logical explanation for how Kate had gone from petty thief to master archer seemingly overnight. 

“Yeah.” A sad shadow passed over the young woman’s face before she continued. “He caught me trying to sell off some art in Seattle, but he didn’t turn me in....said I had potential.” She shook her head almost disbelievingly. “Turns out I only have the potential to lose super important technology and get my ass handed to me.”

Michelle almost smiled at that. Kate definitely had potential. In fact....

Michelle’s thoughts were interrupted by a pounding on the door. The security had arrived to investigate the noise the explosion had caused. At almost that exact moment, Michelle began to hear sirens approaching the hotel from multiple directions. 

Time’s up. 

“Kate, I’ll make you a deal.” Michelle said quickly as she walked towards the balcony.

“Okay.” Kate responded warily while following Michelle out. Michelle quickly attached two grappling hooks to the edge of the balcony and then hooked one to her belt. She swung one leg over the railing while praying her poker face was hiding the fact that she got a little queasy seeing her boot dangling so far above the ground. 

Kate didn’t seem to notice. Thankfully. 

The sound of the security guards breaking down the door and beginning to clear the apartment caused Kate to noticeably flinch. The poor girl had been ambushed way too much in the last few days.

“If you swear not to tell anyone what you stole or that you saw me, I’ll send you to Wakanda.” Michelle made the offer while throwing her other leg over the side of the balcony and turning to balance just the tip of her boots on the very ledge of the elevated platform while clinging to the railing with more force than was strictly necessary. 

Kate intuitively hooked the other grappling gun around her waist as the swarming police cars lit their faces with red and blue hues. 

“What’s in Wakanda?” Kate asked with furrowed brows as she mirrored Michelle’s position.

“A second chance.”

Kate took one long look over her shoulder at the police officers pouring into her hotel room, then nodded.

They both jumped. 

*****

“We located the Russians in a shipping yard. We believe they are trying to sneak the tech out via shipping container. Sending you the coordinates now.” The foreign SHIELD agent’s call cut out as Michelle watched the Quin Jet take off toward Wakanda and disappear into stealth mode. 

This was going to be risky. 

While Michelle’s instincts told her she could trust Kate with her secret mission, sending her ahead created an opportunity for her to be convinced otherwise.

Michelle sighed. 

It had been the right thing to do. 

After barely escaping the hotel and city without being shot by the local police, the girl nearly passed out in the Quin jet. She had fallen asleep while Michelle splinted her broken wrist-meaning she either had an unbelievable pain tolerance or she was dangerously close to collapse. 

Michelle texted Shuri to make sure they had medical personnel ready to evaluate and treat her as soon as the jet arrived. Michelle was 99% confident that Kate would be absolutely fine after some rest and recovery, but she was only 50% confident that her new friend could keep her mouth shut. 

Anxiety pricked in her mind and she forced it down for what must have been the 700th time that day.

Inhale. 

Exhale. 

Focus on what you can control. 

Getting the tech back. 

The intelligence they were able to gather using drones suggested there were approximately 25 armed operatives guarding the technology in a shipping container by the docks.

Michelle was pretty confident in her abilities as an agent, but she knew those were steep odds. If she had more time, she would fly in some extra back-up from the London HQ but if she did that, she would risk missing her window. 

Letting the technology slip through her fingers to Russia was not an option. 

So, she made a plan.

Sure, it was incredibly risky, but it was a plan none the less.

MJ sped off toward the docks once again mentally preparing to do whatever it took to get that technology. 

Tony was counting on her.

Peter was counting on her. 

Hell, half the universe was counting on her.

I have to stop thinking about that. 

Inhale. 

Exhale. 

The dark streets passed by her in a blur as she hurtled toward the coast. She refused to let her anxiety derail her plan. She could panic when she was done, but only then. 

The salty breeze alerted Michelle of her proximity to the coast even before she saw the water on the horizon. She veered off the main road and parked her motorcycle about a tenth of a mile from the entrance preferring to approach on foot. She didn’t know what type of surveillance they had in place and catching them by surprise was absolutely key to her plan. Fortunately, a thick fog had rolled in from the water during the still dark hours of the morning concealing her form from curious onlookers. 

Michelle snuck to the edge of the shipping yard and then scaled the fence. She swung both legs over the top and then jumped rolling softy into a crouching position behind a dark green shipping container. 

She momentarily startled at the sound of a fog horn echoing through the shipyard from the large barge that was being packed with shipping containers by large cranes.

Inhale. 

Exhale. 

She needed to get to the container before it made it onto that ship. 

Crouching approximately four container lengths away from the first guard, Michelle prepared for the fight by mentally reviewing what she knew. The Russians had set up a three-tiered security sweep. Four guards were stationed directly outside the container, eight were clearing the grid like allies between the surrounding containers and an additional ten were sweeping the entire shipping yard in a cross-grid formation. There were three additional insurgents, but Michelle had deduced that they were the ones in charge and therefore not actually useful. 

Michelle grabbed the two pistols out of her chest halter and set them to stun. 

It wouldn’t kill them, but it sure wouldn’t tickle either. 

She used the handles and bars of the container doors as holds to scale the stacked containers and gain a bird’s eye view of her targets.

After a few minutes, the first guard walked through the ally directly below Michelle’s hideout. 

She aimed and fired. 

The guard hit the ground with a barely audible thud.

One down. 

Twenty-four to go. 

Michelle hopped off the left side of the container down to the next set of stacked containers landing as softly as she could. She jumped and rolled across the containers until she found the next unsuspecting guard. 

Inhale. 

Exhale. 

Thud.

Two down. 

Twenty-three to go. 

Michelle proceeded in the same fashion until the outer perimeter of guards were all stunned and dragged out of plain site. 

She estimated she had about two minutes before the team figured out how many of their men were not checking in and all hell broke loose. 

A deep accented voice yelled a Russian phrase she didn’t recognize into a com right around the corner from where she had just drug a limp body out of sight. 

Shit. 

No one responded to the soldier’s summons. 

Make that two seconds before all hell broke loose. 

Michelle leaned around the corner and dropped the guard with a single dart to the neck, but not before he had raised the alarm. 

Michelle grabbed his com to keep tabs on the other soldiers and then quickly scaled back up to the top of a shipping container making herself as invisible as possible. 

She laid perfectly still as two more ran around the corner. She could barely hear them over the pounding of her heart in her ears. The two located the body easily and immediately started yelling profanities and alerting the others. 

Inhale. 

Exhale. 

She had hoped it would take them longer to figure out she was here. In training scenarios, when an agent was caught or discovered earlier than planned, they were taught to abandon the mission and meet at the extraction point as soon as possible. 

Michelle wasn’t abandoning shit. 

She reached down as silently as she could and snapped an explosive out from the heel of her boot. 

Inhale. 

Exhale. 

Michelle pinched the tiny disk and armed the explosive before blindly throwing it over her head in the direction of the fence. 

Three. 

Two. 

One. 

The explosion caused both guards to jump and then immediately sprint in that direction. 

It was almost too easy. Michelle took aim and fired two darts. Each hit their mark effortlessly. 

Two more down. Twelve to go. 

Inhale. 

Exhale. 

Michelle dropped back down to the graveled ground and started moving slowly toward the dark red container that contained the technology. She was careful to move slowly, clearing every corner before advancing further, while listening to the com as half of the insurgents went to investigate the small explosion. 

She was two containers away when the ominous sound of a rifle cocking above her stopped her in her tracks. Adrenaline immediately surged through her spine spreading to her extremities as her body and mind battled for the merits of both fight and flight. 

“Stop.” The heavily accented voice commanded. Michelle really wasn’t in a position to disobey the order, so she didn’t move a muscle. 

“Hands up.” The voice added. Michelle’s hands rose into the air still containing her weapons. 

“I found the intruder.” The voice sounded into a com from behind her. Michelle had to force herself to remain calm as her weapons were ripped out of her hands. Next the imposing man ripped her batons off. Then stole the knives off each thigh. 

Michelle’s hands were wrenched behind her back painfully and then she was marching forward, never having caught a glimpse of the insurgent she clearly hadn’t accounted for. 

Inhale. 

Exhale. 

The harbor lights illuminated an open area directly in front of the container Michelle had targeted. There were six armed guards, three men in suits, and whoever the hell was marching her to her probable death. 

Speaking of…

The goon behind her kicked her in the back of the knees forcing her to kneel in front of the suited assholes. The gravel dug into her knees, but she kept her face utterly passive, unwilling to give them the satisfaction of knowing they could hurt her. She wanted to vomit at having to take such a submissive position in front of all of these men. It brought back memories she really did not want to relive. 

Panic pricked in the back of her skull. 

NO.

Stay calm.

You have a plan.

Inhale. 

Exhale. 

The first suited man marched directly up to her and backhanded her face without preamble. 

Ow. 

Michelle tasted the metallic tang of blood in her mouth almost immediately. She looked forward to spitting that all over his pristine suit. 

“Where are the others?” He asked expectantly. 

Michelle looked him dead in the eye and smiled with what she could only imagine was a grotesquely bloody venire. 

WACK!

Michelle’s neck whipped painfully to the side as the back of his hand connected with her cheek for the second time. This time the force of the hit split her lip and blood spattered onto the gravel beneath her. 

A transmission came in over the com on the goon’s vest, which apparently revealed what Michelle hadn’t yet. 

She was alone. 

There was no one else here. 

“Well, well. You are a brave one.” The second suited man interjected while circling Michelle’s kneeling form. 

Michelle didn’t dignify the patronizing statement with a reaction. 

She was fully capable of handling herself. If they wanted to underestimate her, let them. 

“Why are you here?” The third man, who interestingly had an American accent, interjected. 

Michelle appraised him closely trying to memorize all of his features, so she could find him after all of this was finished. 

Then again, they would already be behind bars. 

The first suited man kicked her in the stomach and she wheezed audibly as her body tried to process the intense pain but she still didn’t allow herself to cry out. Physical pain was one hundred percent preferable to what she had been experiencing mentally and emotionally. In fact, it was a good distraction. 

“Who are you girl?” The second suit queried in a thickly accented baritone. Michelle looked at him for a moment before popping her neck and smiling to herself. 

“I’m the girl who is going to ruin your night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas everybody <3


	8. Exhale

“I don’t want learning, or dignity, or respectability. I want this music and this dawn, and the warmth of your cheek against mine.”  
-Rumi 

All of the men who heard her statement laughed out loud. Jesting and teasing at her expense. 

“If you let me go, I’ll try and get your sentence reduced.” Michelle said enticingly over her shoulder. 

The large goon’s only response was to snort. 

“Okay.” Michelle sighed. “But don’t say I didn’t try though.” 

Michelle dropped until she was flat on the ground and twisted her legs with the obstinate man who she had been allowing to think he had captured her. Michelle got her legs around his torso, wrestled her pistol out of his hand and then fired it directly into his neck. 

The three suits looked on in shock that the “little girl” had just taken down their hired muscle with ease. 

Michelle smirked. 

These guys had no idea what she had planned for them.

In a purely coincidental moment of cosmic design, the C.I.A. chose that exact moment to swarm the ship yard.  
Chaos erupted. 

Armed men in tactical vests entered the small enclosure from every side causing panicked firing of weapons in every direction and mass confusion. 

A bullet hit the first suit in the chest and he fell backwards with a heavy thud. Michelle didn’t waste any time grabbing her remaining weapons, rolling out of the line of fire, and then sprinting toward the red container.

She slammed the heavy red door shut behind her and immediately flinched as bullets indented the metal where she had been standing two seconds ago. 

Phew. That was close. 

The cacophony of the arms fights outside caused an almost deafening ringing in her ears, but she forced herself to take a few breaths and calm her nerves. 

Inhale. 

Exhale. 

She turned and saw that the container was actually full of trunks. Some were open and displayed fancy looking machine guns and lethal knives. Others were closed, but she recognized the numbers and letters painted on the outside as shorthand for an impressive range of explosives.

This was quite the arms deal she had stumbled into. 

Michelle immediately went to work, breaking into the trunks in singular pursuit of the technology she had come for. It took longer than she had anticipated, but after a few minutes of frenzied digging she finally found the exo-suits that Tony had described. They had the number four over the right chest but were otherwise entirely nondescript. She looked around for a more easily transportable bag and found one filled with ammunition.  
The clanking bullets hitting the metal floor as she upended the bag should have alerted everyone within a mile to what she was doing, but it barely came close to the level of noise outside. 

In fact, by the sounds of it, her friends from MI-6 must have just arrived. She shook her head and smiled to herself. It had been almost too easy to use the inherently prideful agencies against each other. 

Michelle stuffed the suits into the dark canvas bag and threw it over her back. 

She poked her head out to see a virtual war zone. While she felt bad for inciting so much panic and violence, she knew that ultimately the Russians needed to be stopped and she needed the tech. 

This was the fastest way for both to get done.

Using the C.I.A. to clean up the loose ends had been as easy as making a phone call to an old buddy from the academy. Then to ensure that everyone was confused and distracted enough not to notice an empty trunk in the massive haul of ammunitions she went ahead and anonymously tipped off MI-6. 

She tapped her watch and armed the charges she had placed on an outlying container just in case she needed cover. 

BOOOOM! 

All of the heads whipped in the opposite direction of the crate Michelle was in as a container exploded on the dock side of the yard sending fire, smoke, and shrapnel in every direction. 

Between the blindsided Russians and the turf war of the agencies, no one heard when the door to the crate slammed shut after her.

No one detected her slipping around the back of the crate and sprinting toward the fence line. 

No one noticed the dark shadow running across the road to hop on a motorcycle.

No one saw the small smirk that played on her lips as she sped off into the night with everything, she needed to save her world. 

*******

TONY

Tony watched the extraordinary group of people gathered around the large dining table chowing down on the delicious Wakandan food the locals had made for them. Shuri had insisted that everyone take a break and eat a meal together. 

It was a fantastic idea and Tony couldn’t deny that she was an incredible leader. 

Everyone needed a break but was too terrified to take one. 

Tensions were high, and tempers were short. Every single individual had been working angles, theories, experiments, and tests from the moment they arrived in the African oasis.

Unfortunately, those theories and tests had been almost entirely unsuccessful. 

They were no closer to recovering the souls Thanos had stolen than when they began. 

Tony immediately lost his appetite as the thought of all the ones he had loved and all the ones he had sworn to protect panged through his mind again. His ears started ringing and the sound of conversations and comradery faded out to nothing but an all too familiar high-pitched tone. His hands automatically came up to cradle his head, even though he knew it wouldn’t help with the migraine forming there. 

He knew he needed to sleep. He knew he needed to eat something other than blueberries and expresso, but every time he closed his eyes or sat down to eat the overwhelming guilt swallowed him so profoundly that he ended up working for hours to distract from the pain. 

Was it healthy? No. 

Would Pepper be pissed? Absolutely. 

But he had no other option. 

Tony pushed back from the table and walked determinedly out of the dining hall. There were so many larger than life heroes in that room, they wouldn’t miss him. They had more interesting and exotic leaders to focus on now. 

Hell even, he was starting to fangirl over Carol Danvers. 

No one would miss him. 

Not at dinner and not when he disappeared for good. 

Tony stopped by the kitchen and grabbed an entire carafe of coffee before heading back to his room. 

The door creaked ever so slightly as he pushed in. 

Tony sighed. 

The inside of his room more closely resembled a mad scientist’s mental break down than a dorm room. 

Perhaps he had finally cracked.

Maybe that’s what it took to beat Thanos.

Maybe he needed to go a little mad himself. 

The warn out inventor set the carafe of coffee down on top of the stack of papers that was nearly overflowing over the desk. 

There were charts and equations written on every type of paper, napkin, and magazine within reach at the moment inspiration struck and then tacked and taped together in every conceivable way. He turned in a circle and took in all of the attempts at solving time vortexes. 

There wasn’t a surface uncovered by the insanity, but still there was only one option. 

To understand them, he had to get inside one and to get inside one might be the end of this very long journey. 

It was ironic.

So much of his life he hadn’t cared at all about whether he lived or died. Sure, he became iron man, but he still wouldn’t have minded going out in a fight. It wasn’t till he and Pepper were truly committed to each other that he started to care about his own life. 

Then Thanos had come and it left him no choice. 

Pepper wasn’t going to forgive him for this. 

God, he hated disappointing her.

Tony shook his head to clear the storm of thoughts cluttering his mind. 

He needed to distract himself. 

He took a huge gulp of coffee and then leaned back over the equation he had been solving last night. 

He was confident that Reed’s technology would keep him alive but he hadn't cracked how to get back out. He needed the mother of all trackers and even Wakanda didn’t have the capability to track an individual in a different dimension.

Tony rubbed his eyes to clear the ever present sting from being open too long. 

He could almost hear Pepper’s voice telling him to put some eye drops in and go to sleep. He loved her with his whole heart, but he couldn’t do that. 

So he got back to work.

Hours passed and the only time he stopped was to rub his eyes, drink more coffee, or crack his knuckles when they cramped up from writing too long. 

The piercing sound of his cell phone ringing startled him out of his nearly comatose focused state.

Was it already morning?

He glanced at the clock and mentally calculated the time change between Africa and New York. 

Nope, it was the middle of the night. 

Who would be calling at this hour? 

He grumbled as he tapped the phone and accepted the call unable to come up with a better greeting than just his last name. 

“Stark.”

“I’ve got them.” The young agents voice cut through his immediate annoyance at being disturbed and replaced it with a glimmer of optimism.

That glimmer was immediately replaced with concern. 

“What took you so long?” Tony asked. 

He couldn’t help the edge in his voice. He wasn’t mad that it had taken her the better part of a week to locate and bring in the tech, in fact he was amazed she had done it so quickly. Tony had actually just been incredibly worried about her. There had been three days there where she went completely off the grid. None of his tech had been able to track her.

Now she just drops in out of nowhere like it was no big deal. 

Kids. 

“I was....it’s hard to explain...” the confidence in the agents voice trailed off slightly. 

“Try harder.” Tony had a terrifying realization that he sounded exactly like his father and shuttered.

“Woah who peed in your Cheerios?” Michelle snipped back immediately.

Tony almost chuckled at that.

It’s something he would have said. 

“Sorry, lack of sleep.” Tony admitted honestly. “What happened to you?”

“I’ll explain when I get there. I should be in Wakanda by the morning. Did Kate get in okay?”

Tony racked his brain and recalled Shuri mentioning that Michelle had sent an injured girl ahead of her. Her arrival hadn’t been pertinent to the equation he was working when the princess brought it up, so he hadn’t spared the mental energy to focus on it.

She was probably fine. 

“Uh yeah.” He said in what he hoped was reassuring.

Both of the ends of the line were silent for a few moments before Michelle finally broke it.

“Do you think we can do it?” 

Tony looked around the room, scanning the sheer amount of probabilities he had calculated and still he had no idea. All he had was a gut instinct that he had decided to trust, and it very well could be leading him to his death. 

He of course was not letting Michelle anywhere near the time vortex. He already had Peter’s life on his conscience, there was no way he was going to get his girlfriend killed off too. 

The kid would never forgive him.

He would never forgive himself.

Tony knew he needed to keep up pretenses with Michelle or she would figure out his plan to leave her behind. The girl was too smart for her own good and if he were being honest with himself he really did like her. More than that, he respected her. 

“Yeah, we can do it.” He lied.

The words sounded hollow even to his own ears, but Michele must have bought it because the call disconnected a moment later. 

Tony sighed. He could add Michelle to the list of people that would hate him for diving into the time vortexes alone.

He poured another large cup of coffee and started chugging it down. A familiar tug in his heart reminded him that he still needed to talk to Steve. 

He knew he couldn’t leave things the way they were. 

Sure, he was still pissed as hell that he hadn’t told Tony about Buck...Hydra killing his parents, but honestly the greatest betrayal had been that when it  
mattered most, Steve didn’t have his back. 

Although his patriotism and relentless idealism was almost nauseating to Tony, he couldn’t deny that Steve was one of his best friends. 

His heart ached for that friendship. Steve had always been there at times like these when all hope was lost. When things got really bad, Steve would be the one to get everyone off their asses and out the door. 

He missed that pain in the ass. 

Almost as if the thought itself had summoned him, there was large knock on the door.

Tony’s shredded nerves caused him to flinch and he accidentally poured the luke-warm coffee all over his shirt and desk.

“Shit.” Tony exclaimed as he reached for something to sop up the spill. He ended up grabbing some napkins and put them down in the coffee.

“Fuck.” He realized the napkins had his latest time conversion equation key on them. 

He heard the door open behind him and immediately turned to yell at the intruder.

He hadn’t wanted anyone to see this. 

He came up short when he saw that it was Steve. His blonde friend crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow. 

“I swear if the next word out of your mouth is ‘language’ I’m never speaking to you again.” Tony teased reflexively. He had momentarily forgotten that they already weren’t speaking. 

Steve crossed his arm over his chest and smirked. The two men were suspended for a moment silently reminiscing about simpler times...ya know like when they fought off a Chitauri army in New York or defeated Ultron by dropping Sokovia on him. 

Ah yes, the good old days.

“You look horrible.” Steve said with a kind smile. Tony didn’t know how but he felt both calmer and more anxious with Steve here. 

On one hand, half the world had disappeared, and it was nice to have a bit of normalcy back. 

Just two guys trying to save the world. 

On the other, Tony was hoping Steve’s capacity to understand quantum theory and equations hadn’t exponentially increased since the last time they had spoken, otherwise he would take one look at the walls...and the floor....and the desk...

Ok Steve was for sure going to figure this out. 

Tony didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t sure he could apologize but he also wanted to clear the air. He looked down at his bare feet and rocked back on his heals for a second and then decided he should start from the beginning.

Tony put his left hand in the pocket of his warm out jeans but extended the right in an offer of a handshake. 

Steve’s eyes looked at the hand for a moment before he grasped it firmly in its his own right hand.

Phew, ok. That hadn’t been so bad.

Then tony felt an unreasonably hard tug and suddenly he was being fully embraced by Captain America. 

A veteran.

A man out of time.

A hero.

Tony’s lip pulled up in a sad smile when he realized what he really was to him and clasped his arms heartily around his unnecessarily broad shoulders.

A friend. 

******

MICHELLE

Michelle was sitting cross legged on the floor of the jet rolling Wong’s time piece in between her fingers as she hurtled closer to Wakanda. 

She knew Tony was going to try and leave her behind and she refused to let that happen. She had suspected as much from the beginning, but his empty words on the phone confirmed it. 

That son of a bitch was going to leave her. 

After about twenty minutes of driving herself insane thinking of possible contingencies and scenarios, she decided she would use this time for something more productive. 

Michelle let her eyes fall closed and then chose a memory to focus on. 

This was one of her favorites. 

The rainy ally. 

The lightning snapping in the distance. 

She saw herself in her mind’s eye and focused on the light centered in her chest. 

A few months ago....

"Bull. Shit."

"Look, I don't know if you’re having some kind of Tourette's episode or if you’re actually too dumb to get it through your thick skull, but it wasn’t real, it was an act. I faked every single interaction and I own your ass, Parker. If I were you, I would be a little more concerned about the damag..."

Her fictitious monologue was abruptly cut short by Peter's lips crashing into hers. A moment later she felt his hands grab both sides of her face and his fingers curl into her soaked hair effectively capturing her in place. Time was suspended as Michelle’s entire body blazed with feelings that she hadn’t  
even known were possible. Her eyelids fluttered closed, goosebumps covered her skin, butterflies danced around her stomach, and her heart pounded  
against her rib cage.

After the initial aggression, Peters lips softened and molded perfectly to Michelle's as she sat completely still just kissing him back.

Present day....

Their first kiss. 

Michelle felt the sensations all over again as the glow around her heart intensified and heated. 

She had loved him even then. She had had no idea how much more she would now. 

As her mind recalled the taste of Peter’s lips dampened with the summer rain, she felt her body transcend the physical plane. She floated away leaving everything behind.

Everything except for the sensation of the cool metal timepiece in her right hand and the soft sound of the ticks and tocks as its hands beat onward. 

This time when her eyes opened, she was back in the black abyss. 

Peter was sitting cross legged in the strange black water that coated the ground. 

He looked peaceful.

Before she had even taken a step or made a sound, his lips spread into a huge smile. 

Michelle wasn’t sure if it was the hum of their ever-strengthening connection or his Spidey-sense, but he always seemed to know she was there before she could even think about sneaking up on him. 

“I knew you couldn’t stay away.” Peter teased as he climbed to his feet.

Michelle rolled her eyes, but it didn’t stop her from marching right up to him and throwing her arms around him in a tight hug. 

“How are you? Are you okay?” She asked immediately as she looked him over. His eyes looked clearer than the last time she had seen him but there was still something missing. 

“I’m good. Are you?” He leaned back slightly and took in her full tactical suit. 

“Found some new friends, we ended up disagreeing.” She explained with a smirk. Peter’s eyebrow quirked but he didn’t question her. 

He must have been able to hear the accelerated ticking of the watch because he gently took her wrist from its position around his neck and opened her hand. 

“I think your watch is broken.” He said with his signature dry humor as he inspected the time piece. The hands were moving faster now, and Michelle could see minutes ticking by where seconds should have been. 

“I have to keep track of the time. Otherwise, I might not go back.” Michelle explained as Peter tinkered with the watch. 

“This is the time on earth?” He looked up with a furrowed brow. “How long have I been here?” A note of panic had entered his voice and Michelle could see him mentally calculating the accelerated time difference. 

There was only one truthful answer.

“Too long.” Michelle whispered as an uninvited tear fell from her eye.

Peter looked up at her and then wiped it away rewrapping his arms back tightly around her. 

“Please don’t cry.” He whispered into her hair.

“I can’t help it.” Her voice cracked, and she squeezed her eyes shut in a vain attempt at stopping the overflow of emotions that being near him triggered in her. 

She could hardly remember being the girl last year that never cried. Now it felt like it was all she did.

“I bet I can though.” Michelle didn’t even have time to ask what he meant before he had taken her hand and spun her around twice. When she was finally facing him again, he wrapped one hand around her back and took her other in his before starting to dance. 

“What are you doing?” Michelle questioned immediately as she desperately tried not to trip over her own feet.

She couldn’t dance.

This was going to end badly for Peter’s toes.

“Practicing.” Peter said with his signature mischievous smirk before spinning her out and back again. 

Amazingly she hadn’t crushed his foot under her own yet. 

“Practicing for what?” Michelle’s overly stressed mind couldn’t quite follow his reasoning. 

“Homecoming.” Their eyes locked and held at the double meaning behind the word as Peter kept their bodies swaying gently. 

She could care less about some stupid school dance but the idea of going with Peter made the whole ridiculous ritual seem whimsical and exciting. 

“Are you asking me to the dance, Peter Parker?” Michelle asked through the small smile that had formed on her lips as Peter started spinning them again. 

“Nope.” Peter said plainly. 

Michelle could see that he was teasing but still felt a twinge of disappointment at his response. 

“Oh.” Was the only ‘intelligent’ response she could come up with and it made Peter chuckle. 

She was so distracted by her thoughts that she barely registered when he spun her out again. This time he pulled extra hard to bring her back in and suddenly she was up against his chest. 

“I wanted to ask you with one of those ridiculous posters and a dozen sunflowers in the middle of Midtown High where everyone could see.” Peter whispered into her ear. Michelle bit her lower lip and tried not to smile. 

“I would have hated that.” She said honestly. 

“Yeah, I know.” Peter dipped her back low and smirked at her slightly alarmed expression. “But you still would have said yes.” He kissed a line up her neck and she couldn’t help but be completely and utterly charmed by Peter’s display of affection. 

“Whatever loser.” Michelle wanted to say the words snarkily to regain some of her footing, but they came out just above a whisper and sounded closer to a declaration of endearment. 

At this point, they probably were. 

Peter’s eyes crinkled as he smiled down at her. She knew that he knew that he had her. She was completely and utterly taken with him. There wasn’t a person in the universe that couldn’t see it in the way she was staring hopefully up into his eyes. 

Peter’s eyes flitted down to her lips and Michelle’s entire body broke out in goosebumps. 

Peter moved achingly slow and connected his lips to her forehead. 

A small sigh escaped her lips. 

Then he brought his lips to her right cheek. 

Her eyes fluttered closed. 

She felt his breath on her left cheek before the velvet smooth texture of his lips left a kiss there as well. 

He brought his lips down to her nose next and it instantly made her smile. 

Peter paused for a long enough beat that Michelle opened her eyes to find him staring down at her with the most adoring look she had ever seen on his face.

It made her blush. 

It made her glow.

“I love your smile.” He whispered softly and in response her lips curled up even further. 

After what felt like an eternity, Peter finally connected their lips in a featherlight kiss.

Michelle felt it all the way to her toes. 

Woah.

Peter stood and pulled Michelle up with him. Her equilibrium was off, and she swayed slightly adding to the sensation of lightheadedness that those kisses had already caused in her brain. 

“You need to go.” Michelle was so enraptured by the sensations that one kiss had caused in her that the words didn’t really register. In fact, she was too busy burying her hands in his hair to process what those words even meant. 

She leaned in to capture his lips, closer….

Her heart pounded in her chest with anticipation. 

closer….

Her hands shook slightly with excitement. 

closer…

Her belly filled with butterflies in expectation of how good it would feel to have his lips back against hers. 

closer…

Peter retreated at the last possible moment just far enough to prevent her lips from brushing his. 

Michelle finally opened her eyes and couldn’t help but pout at having her attempt at a kiss thwarted. 

Peter’s answering smile soothed any sting his dodge had caused. He shook his head slightly and then leaned his forehead forward until it was connected with hers before explaining himself.

“If you start kissing me, I’m not going to be able to stop.”

Michelle’s eyes closed, and she realized how utterly true those words were. They always lost track of time when they were in each other’s arms and that had been with regular time-let alone in whatever time-warped dimension this was. 

Logical or not, it still broke her heart to have him so close yet so incredibly unattainable. 

Her soul, her heart, her body…every molecule was screaming at her to stay here and be with him. 

But she couldn’t. 

“I don’t know if I have the strength to leave.” Michelle whispered.

The thought of intentionally leaving him here again was physically painful. It felt like she was intentionally removing a part of herself, her favorite part, and then walking away.

Peter pushed her hair behind her ears with both hands and then kissed her forehead again. 

She wrapped her hands around his wrists to hold him there. 

“Don’t let go.” The words fell out of her mouth automatically.

Tears fell from Michelle’s eyes and dropped into the water below them causing small ripples to spread into the black tide.

“I’ll be waiting.”

She squeezed her eyes shut against the simultaneous joy and pain those words caused and then she was back in her body. She was descending into Wakanda and knew she should start wiping the torrent of tears off her cheeks, but she couldn’t. She was frozen in the pain and the only thing she could do between sobs was remind her fragile lungs to breathe…

You can do it Michelle.

Just inhale. 

Good.

Now exhale. 

Okay...

Now one more time…


	9. Twin

"She was unraveling into something stronger."

-Unknown

“You son of a bitch!” 

Michelle didn’t have time to think about what she was doing. 

She jumped. 

Possibly to her death.

Possibly to her future. 

She just jumped. 

**** 

24 hours earlier. 

“What’s the plan?” Michelle said after lugging the large duffle bag to Tony’s room in Wakanda. 

If you could call the pig sty a room. 

Tony really needed to get out more. 

His dormitory more closely resembled what Michelle imagined the inside of someone’s mind looked like when they had a psychotic break than an actual room. 

Then again….

She eyed Tony up and down once more. His facial hair was grown out, his eyes were bloodshot, and he had coffee stains on the sweats he was wearing. Despite the physical evidence to the contrary, she knew he was still fully capable of thinking circles around her at this very moment. 

That telltale spark in his eye that made you believe he was not only the smartest person in the room but also hiding a secret was still shining brilliantly underneath the wear and tear of these last months. 

“We are going to jump into a time vortex wearing those suits and hope for the best.” Tony tried to deliver the line nonchalantly, but Michelle saw the way his hands twitched as he said it. One of the benefits about being a good liar was being able to spot the signs in other people when she saw them. 

He was lying. 

He was hiding something. 

Michelle was about to confront him on just that when a third figure appeared out of seemingly nowhere in front of the door. 

Michelle’s instincts kicked in and she had her pistol trained on the strangers forehead in under a second. 

“Sorry, I’m late....” Scott Lang was looking down at his strange circular belt buckle not immediately registering the threat the overly tired and anxious teenage girl posed to him. “…Shuri made me show her how this worked like a gazzilli-WOAH!” Scott finally looked up and registered the gun and immediately took two steps back. 

“What is he doing here?” Michelle demanded forcing herself to control her voice and not yell at the infuriating mad scientist beside her.

“I invited him.” Tony said with a shrug as if he hadn’t completely neglected to tell her such an important detail.

Michelle glared at Tony. 

“Just the two of us huh?” She said letting the betrayal she felt ooze through with each syllable. 

“We’re going into the quantum realm. Scott is the only person who has been there and back again....”

“I’ve actually been multiple times...” Scott interrupted happily before noting Michelle’s glare and Tony’s eye roll and letting his excitement ebb off. 

“Look,” Tony said while pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut. “As far as tour guides go, the options were limited, and Lang has as much stake in this as us.”

Michelle looked at Scott fully for the first time since he appeared in the cramped space. He certainly bore the tell-tale signs of someone who had survived the snap but lost their world. 

Blood shot tired eyes framed by dark circles. 

Slightly slumped shoulders that looked like they had finally broken under the weight piled on top of them. 

“Who did you lose?” Michelle asked calmly while stowing her gun in her chest holster. 

There was a long pause.

“I lost everyone.” Scott’s eyes teared slightly at the corners before he blinked it away and sighed loudly. 

Michelle recognized the expression because she had worn it herself so many times. She recognized the wave of paralyzing grief that threatened to consume him and then a deep breath that told the despair to hold on for just a few more hours until he could be alone and let it out. 

He was coming with them. Of that, she was 100% sure.

“Alright tour guide, tell us what you know about the Quantum Realm.”

***** 

Michelle yawned for what felt like the hundredth time as she slid her plate through the buffet line. She had really wanted to sleep after the relentless hours of pouring over plans with Scott and Tony, but it seemed even in the face of nearly certain death and soul-crushing grief her stomach couldn’t be denied for a moment longer. 

Scott had snacked the entire time they worked-mainly on cereal or candy. Tony seemed utterly satisfied on a steady stream of expresso. She hadn’t been able to eat until a plan had been organized always promising herself that in one more hour she would go take a break only to push past that hour over and over again.

Then her head had begun to pound with a migraine and her hands shook when she had reached for another pencil. She knew she had pushed her body far beyond its limits and finally had the good sense to take a break and search out some food. 

Another yawn immediately followed the first one.

“Careful their ace, you might catch a fly.” A familiar voice sounded from behind her. 

Michelle turned and immediately recognized Carol Danvers. The woman was so beautiful it was almost insulting in comparison to how pitiful Michelle was sure she looked. 

MJ had traded her tactical suit for a pair of leggings and one of Peter’s t-shirts that she had swiped on her visit to Brooklyn. This one was oversized and proclaimed that she had survived her trip to NYC. 

It was ironic because her current state of being couldn’t actually qualify as survival. 

She had showered quickly and not bothered doing anything with her hair far too anxious to miss any of the planning for the mission. That meant her hair was somewhere on the spectrum of limp mop to ‘I just stuck my hand in an electrical socket’ and she hadn’t had the energy to check where it had landed.

“Captain.” She nodded with a smirk. “Settling back into life on earth?”

“I wish it were under different circumstances, but I have all ways loved C-53. Even after all this time it’s still feels...” Carol got a faraway look in her eye and then shook her head slightly.

“Like home.” Michelle finished for her. Carol smiled sadly and then gave Michelle’s an even closer once over.

Michelle intentionally turned her head back toward the dishes of aromatic food in a futile attempt to hide the dark circles she knew she was sporting. 

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you like shit.” Carol said in her no-nonsense way. 

Michelle sighed. 

“Did you find what you were looking for?” She asked. 

Michelle’s mind momentarily went blank. She couldn’t remember how much Carol knew. Her brain felt like someone had dunked it molasses.

She needed to sleep. She needed to take a minute and sort out her head and heart before she went on the most dangerous mission of her life. 

There was so much to do. She couldn’t sleep or she might miss her ticket to the quantum realm and if she did that then she would be helpless again. She couldn’t be that either. 

“Yeah, I found it.” She responded with appropriate vagueness.

“Good, I’m glad. The sooner you get to the quantum realm the sooner we can weaken Thanos and destroy that gauntlet.” So, she had told the Captain the plan. Good. Michelle could use an ally. 

Michelle nodded and then thanked the woman serving her food in her native language. 

Michelle was torn between wishing Carol would get lost and leave her to devour her food in peace and hoping she stuck around and told her all about what it had been like to be a human, or whatever she technically was, in space. 

What had she seen? 

Who had she saved? 

What had she learned? 

“So, what has been going on here?” Michelle asked, acutely aware she had been ignoring her responsibilities as director of SHIELD. 

Fury would be upset. He would get over it. 

“Lots of science. Lots of strategy meetings. Lots of hiding big tough man tears behind closed doors.” Carol finished dryly.

Michelle snorted. The reality of the widespread pain and disillusionment wasn’t really funny, but they had to find humor in something these days. 

Michelle yawned again. She logically knew she would need to sleep at some point but hadn’t figured out whien. She wasn’t even sure how long she had been awake...was it 48 hours...was it longer?

Carol plopped down across from her and Michelle was hit by a wave of Deja vu as she set her tray down on the table. 

For a split secondshe was just a kid again, sitting across from her friends at the lunch table at school. She could almost smell the daily lunch special at Midtown High. Could almost hear the idiotic jesting of Flash across the room. Could almost picture the twinkle in her favorite pair of brown eyes after he had said something that made her smile. 

She blinked and she was back in the present listening to Carol update her on the current state of affairs in Wakanda.

Almost as quickly as she had focused back in on the present, her mind drifted again. 

She couldn’t focus on anything.

She was also having difficulty keeping her eyes open and mechanically shoveling food in her mouth now that she had stopped moving. 

Keep your eyes open.

Take another breath.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Pretend to be listening to Carol. 

No. 

Listen to Carol. 

Yes.

Open your eyes! 

Phew, that was close.

She had to stay awake. 

She had to make sure everything went to plan. 

“Jones, are you ok?” She heard the voice distantly as if she was under water? 

Who had she been talking to?

She had to get him back. 

Peter. 

Her mind drifted.

No focus. 

What was he doing right now?

Was he thinking of her? 

Michelle blinked.

Something had changed. 

It was quiet. 

The dull roar of indistinct chatter of the busy dining hall went suddenly and utterly silent.

She opened her eyes and felt her blood rush suddenly and immediately to her chest. 

What the hell? 

All of the people in the cafeteria had disappeared. 

Michelle stood. 

Her breaths came faster as the familiar icy claws of panic clutched at her throat. 

No no no no no.

This couldn’t be happening again. 

Thanos had already taken half the universe. He couldn’t take everyone could he? 

“Hello?”

Michelle whirled around frantically scanning for any sign of life other than herself.

“Is anyone there?” She heard the crack in her voice and the quiver as hopelessness engulfed her. 

Don’t panic. 

Focus. 

Breathe. 

Look for survivors. 

Yes. 

Go. 

She systematically searched the halls of the palace for any signs of life before ending up back in the dining hall as hopeless as she had ever remembered feeling. 

There was no one left.

This was her worst nightmare. Live and in living color. Playing out with no end in sight. 

She began shaking as the initial shot of adrenaline broke and its absence left her feeling weak and cold. 

“Please, no.” She whispered on a long exhale as tears filled her eyes blurring the empty world around her. 

She couldn’t breathe. 

She didn’t really want to. 

If she was all that was left, then she would rather go with them. She couldn’t be left behind again. 

The edges of her field of vision began to turn black and slowly closed down to a very tiny pin point. She felt the same thing happen to her heart. She didn’t want to feel any of this. 

No.

Control it.

Inhale. 

Exhale.

That didn’t work. 

She felt herself sink to the floor and wrap her arms around her bent knees. It was instinctual to make herself as small as possible in the face of all of the pain and terror. It was as if she thought that making herself small would cause the pain to skip over her and find the next unwilling victim to torment. 

It didn’t work.

Tears poured out of her eyes, but her shocked system couldn’t even generate the energy to sob. 

She was frozen. 

She didn’t know what to do. 

She couldn’t think. 

All she could do was feel the excruciating pain of being utterly alone in the universe.

Inhale. 

Exhale.

Come on Michelle, you have to think. 

No. She didn’t want to. There was no solving this problem. 

Inhale. 

Exhale. 

One moment she felt nothing but the icy chill of isolation, the next warm hands grabbed her shoulders.

“MJ? What happened? What’s wrong?”

She was probably just imagining it. No one was here. She was alone.

“MJ! Look. At. Me.” Each word was punctuated with a firm shake. 

Peter? 

Why is Peter here? 

His hands feel nice.

Peter’s gone. 

She knew that she was still frozen and shaking but she couldn’t convince her head to raise. 

What if it wasn’t real? 

If he wasn’t here than she really would lose it. 

Geez, she needed to get a grip.

The Michelle she was a year ago would be kicking her ass right now. 

Woman up, Michelle. 

She still had her eyes squeezed tightly shut when she felt those familiar thumbs wipe the trails of tears off her cheeks.

“Is that you, Loser?” She smirked, but even so her voice cracked a little on his nickname.

“Open those beautiful eyes and see for yourself.” Michelle felt her lips curl up and a moment later she finally blinked her eyes open. 

Their eyes met and held.  
Even through the film of her tears, he was still the most beautiful thing in the universe to her. 

The exhausted agent reached forward and grabbed a hold of his shirt and yanked him toward herself without warning. Peter of course caught her effortlessly and caught his weight so that he wasn’t crushing her while laying on top of her supine form. He had no doubt sensed her movement before it had even begun. She tucked her head into his neck and squeezed as tightly as she could. 

Peter gave the best hugs.

“Hi.” She said sheepishly when she finally loosened her arms enough that he could breath. 

“Hi.” His brow was furrowed as if she was a problem he couldn’t quite solve. She felt his hands tighten slightly on either side of her head just before he leaned in and placed a firm but chaste kiss against her lips. 

“What happened?” He asked while pushing her hair back from her forehead in soothing strokes. 

He was in what she affectionately thought of as ‘Spider-Man’ mode. Focused. Vigilant. She loved seeing him like this. He didn’t physically change but his entire presence shifted from nerdy teenage boy to courageous man in a split second. 

It was a glimpse into who he would become and just another one the things she found irresistible about him. 

A few long moments passed before her brain actually processed the question and she was troubled to discover she didn’t have an answer.

“I- I don’t know...I was...” Her memories were hazy. It was a feeling she had recently learned to despise. Michelle looked around at the empty room with the fresh perspective of calm Peter had restored in her.

The dining hall was empty. 

Why was that so scary a few seconds ago?

He felt nice against her.

“I just...there’s no one here.” She said as a half-hearted explanation. Why couldn’t she think? What was wrong again? Her head swiveled and clocked the tribal art painted on the walls. 

Wakanda. 

She was in Wakanda. 

“There’s never anyone here but us, Michelle.” Peter said gently as if trying to explain a simple concept to a toddler who couldn’t quite grasp it yet.

That was true but…

“How did I get here?” She wondered out loud.

“All I know is that it was quiet and then I heard you call out. When I reached through our connection, I found you here.” Peter explained.

Her brows furrowed. Why was Peter so good at this whole other realm of existence thing? He was navigating it like an expert while she seemed to be thrown inexplicably and violently between worlds.

Her inherent competitive nature was annoyed that she wasn’t just as good at navigating their strange connection as he was. 

Truthfully, she was actually bitter that she wasn’t better. 

Ugh. Stupid, good-at-everything-he-tries loser.

Was there a pattern to her appearances? 

She hadn’t been trying to get here. She was sure of that.

What had she been doing right before she appeared here? What brought her here?

It had been important, or maybe not...

Peter placed a soft kiss on her forehead and her train of thought was derailed once again.

Why couldn’t she think?

All she could do was feel. What was happening to her?

“Hi.” She repeated as she snuggled into his warmth. Peter’s body was like a heater, he almost seemed to vibrate with this warm energy. Michelle was nearly always cold, and the contrast of his skin’s temperature was downright addicting.

“You said that already.” Peter chuckled as his arms wrapped around her and his hands played in her hair. 

She loved the sound of his laugh. She loved feeling the vibrations of it against her heart. 

“I missed you.” Michelle said into his neck wishing he was really back, and she could truly experience all of those infinitesimal details that, even with their connection, she couldn’t quite conjure in this plane of reality. 

Peter responded only by squeezing her tighter to himself. The connection hummed between them and sparked as their breathing synchronized. 

“Michelle?” Peter leaned back slightly and so she mirrored his movement letting her head rest back against the cold tile of the floor. 

“Yeah?” She couldn’t help but get lost in his giant concerned puppy-dog eyes. 

When had he gotten so handsome? He looked older. 

Time was flying and she couldn’t seem to catch up. 

They had gotten such little time together before the dusting. 

If they got more time, she vowed that she would spend more of it just enjoying being with him. 

Not planning or strategizing or studying, but just enjoying him.

Picking his ridiculously sharp mind for interesting facts. 

Laughing at his irresistibly charming jokes. 

Watching all of those old movies that he would get totally lost in. 

Distracting him from those movies with her favorite pass time.

“I’m-“ She cut him off by slamming her lips into his. 

She kissed him. 

Hard. 

She didn’t even consciously make the decision to move but here she was devouring him.

Carpe diem, right?

After a moment’s hesitation, Peter returned the kiss with equal fervor. 

Woah. 

When he kissed her like that, it did things to her brain. 

She felt drunk. She didn’t feel totally in control of herself.

One moment she was lying sandwiched against Peter on the floor, the next he scooped her up and she had her legs wrapped around his hips. 

One dizzying turn later and she felt her bottom connect with the cool top of the dining table. 

The accelerated movement in combination with the way Peter was consuming every single one of her senses caused sparks to light in every nerve ending of her body. 

And yet? 

Hadn’t she been eating a few minutes ago? 

Where had her tray gone?

More importantly where had Peter learned to do that with his tongue? 

Her momentary loss in focus was quickly corrected when Peter’s hands crept under her leggings and connected with the bare skin underneath.

Her blood heated to a temperature that was approaching but hadn’t yet arrived at uncomfortable.

She felt damn near febrile. 

Why did she have so many clothes on?

It’s not as if there was anyone around.

Why had that been so scary a few moments ago?

Why does it feel so good for him to suck her neck right there?

Michelle grabbed the hem of her shirt and wrenched it over her head revealing the tiny pink bralette she wore underneath. 

Her sudden movement had broken their kiss-allowing Peter an uninhibited view of her bared chest. 

She watched in pure feminine pride as his mouth went slightly slack and his pupils dilated. 

She liked that response. It made her feel like he really was as addicted to her as she was to him. 

She leaned forward to kiss his neck and felt the bob of his Adam’s apple against her lips.

The brief reprieve from the insanity of their lust ended as quickly as it had begun. Peter captured her head and brought her lips back to his while simultaneously pulling her hips until they were flush against his own. 

Peter was being uncharacteristically irresponsible. She was shocked he hadn’t stopped them yet. She was also not going to complain. She could be the responsible one and stop them at any time. 

She just didn’t want to. 

It felt too good to be against him again, lost in his heat.

Her world tilted as Peter guided her down until her back was flat against the table. He kissed a line down her neck as she reached under his shirt and clawed at his back.

“You drive me insane you know that?” He whispered in her ear before leaning back and pulling his shirt over her head.

Michelle was afforded an incredible few of his lean muscles.

“You’re kind of hot for a decathlete. You know?” She teased as she took his hands and leveraged them to pull herself up so that they were nose to nose again. 

She was indecently intoxicated by the feeling of his skin against her own.

She should be nervous about what would inevitably come next but there was no anxiety. 

She only wanted to feel more. 

Hadn’t she been doing something? 

Where was she again? 

Oh my god...

Michelle had missed the part where Peter’s hand had dipped underneath the front of her leggings as her head spun with the sensations coming from his mouth on her neck. Her back arched instinctively and inadvertently added even more pressure to his delicious ministrations. 

“Woah.” She exhaled breathlessly.

As suddenly as she had felt the contact it was removed, as Peter’s head suddenly snapped up.

“Did you hear that?” 

Michelle hadn’t heard a damn thing over the sound of her own heart beat in her ears. She took both her hands and dragged them over the hair on Peter’s arms that was sticking straight up. 

She knew that he had sensed something, and she also knew she should be alert and ready to fight whatever was threatening them. However, she was also ready to devour her distracted boyfriend.

Screw being responsible. 

She always did the expected thing. 

She always took the call. 

She always followed the order. 

Not today. Today, she wanted to feel good for what felt like the first time in ages and she wanted Peter right there with her.

Her hands reached his neck and she gently pulled his head back down to her lips. 

It took a few moments of steady coaxing, but Peter finally seemed to relent and melt back against her. Her hands dragged down his sides before reaching for the button on his jeans and then sliding her hand down even further to explore what was underneath. 

Peter grunted when her hand made contact with him and his hand fisted her hair even tighter. He kissed her with a ferocity that was bordering on animalistic. 

She loved it. She wanted him to feel more. 

The heat grew and grew until Michelle was moving her hips against him in an echo of a much more intimate act. 

“I want you.” She whispered into his ear as their hands and tongues explored each other. 

Peter’s hands tangled in her leggings and he had been just about to pull the fabric off when they both heard a shout from the other side of the room. 

What the hell?

“Michelle!!!” The voice rang out. 

This time both teenagers scrambled to their feet. 

“What was that?” Michelle asked as she rushed to pull her shirt back over her head. 

“WAKE UP!!” The shout pierced the entire dining hall but on inspection the room was still completely empty. 

Peter turned around and grabbed her shoulders.

“Of course! Michelle you must have fallen asleep. That is how you got here. Just like in the beginning.” 

Gosh, he was cute when he was solving a problem. 

Focus on what he is saying you lush. 

That made sense. 

Yeah, she must have just fallen asleep. 

So, why did she still feel like she was missing a huge piece of the puzzle?

“You have to wake up!! RIGHT NOW!!” The voice rung out again.

Huh. 

Peter’s brows furrowed and his head turned slightly. 

That was her voice, wasn’t it? He had recognized the familiar tone too. 

Suddenly a third person appeared in the abandoned dining hall casting an eerily familiar shadow as she sprinted toward them. 

“What the-“ Michelle exhaled as the form came into focus. Much to both of their surprise, it wasn’t a stranger who had ran up to them yelling. 

It was her. 

The first thing Michelle registered was that she looked like a mess. Wrinkled oversized T-shirt. Wild mane of air-dried curls. Lips red and clearly flushed. It was like looking into a mirror only the mirror had autonomous thoughts and movements. 

Ok. 

No reason to panic. 

She had clearly had some sort of psychotic break and was imagining this. 

“Michelle, you have to wake up right now!” Other her said as she walked right up to Peter and her. Peter instinctively took a step-in front of Michelle adopting a defensive stance. 

“Really Peter?” Other her said while crossing her arms over her chest. 

Damn is that what that looked like? She was kind of scary when she wanted to be.

“Who are you? What do you want?” Michelle demanded. 

Other Michelle rolled her eyes in exasperation. 

“Am I really this dense? I’m you and I’m here to make sure you wake the HELL UP!” 

Other Michelle took a threatening step toward Michelle and Peter stuck his arm out to bar her. 

At least Peter wasn’t buying this load of bull shit. Whoever this clone was, she was doing a very impressive rendition of Michelle and Michelle didn’t like it one bit. 

But Peter’s next words had Michelle’s head whipping toward him. 

“Prove it. Prove you are Michelle.” Peter said softly to her evil twin. 

“What?! Peter I’m right here how could that possibly be me?” Michelle cried in outrage. Other Michelle shrugged as if she had expected this and MJ watched in abject horror as she grabbed Peter by the face and kissed him forcefully.

At first Peter’s hands came up in a defensive position ready to shove her away, but after a moment they simply wound around other Michelle’s wrists. 

Michelle’s mouth dropped open as a shot of pain wound through her heart immediately followed by daggers of anger. 

Peter and other Michelle broke the kiss and stared into each other’s eyes.

“I have to get her to wake up. She is thinking with her heart, but you and I both know she needs to go back.” Other Michelle said gently while running her hands through Peter’s hair just like MJ loved to do. 

For some reason that was the final straw for Michelle, not the kiss, but the intimacy of knowing what it felt like to run her hands through Peter’s hair. 

Peter was hers. 

Michelle took a step forward and planted herself firmly between Peter and other Michelle before shoving herself so forcefully on the chest that her other half fell backwards onto her ass. 

“Back. Off.” Michelle said angrily as her fists contracted at her sides. 

“Hey, don’t hurt her!” Peter said stepping towards her fallen half. 

“Don’t even think about it.” She practically growled at him. 

She could recognize that she was out of control of her emotions. Snapping at the person she was about to fight for was pretty good evidence that she was no longer capable of thinking rationally. 

She didn’t care. She was pissed and this chick was about to feel the full expression of that. 

Peter looked helplessly between to two identical Michelles. 

Other Michelle shook her head and dusted off her butt as she rose to her feet. 

“You want to go a few rounds, little star? Then let’s go.”

“Uh maybe that’s not the best idea.” Peter interjected from beside Michelle. 

“Shut-up, Peter.” Both Michelle’s snapped at the same time while shooting him identical glares. 

Peter raised his hands up in mock surrender and then moved to sit on the dining table with his feet on a chair. 

Michelle focused back on herself as they moved in a circle measuring each other up. 

“You need to get your head out of your ass and wake up.” Other Michelle said threateningly. 

“I. Don’t. Want. To.” It took saying the words out loud to her other self for Michelle to realize how true the words were. She didn’t want to go back. She was tired of fighting. She just wanted to rest. 

“Too bad.” Other Michelle lunged toward her landing a direct right hook to her cheek.

Michelle spit blood onto the floor before looking up into her own eyes. 

“Oh, it’s on.” 

The pair of doppelgängers launched viciously into an all-out brawl. 

Michelle had never fought with herself. Obviously. 

Turns out she was kind of a bad ass and she fought a little dirty. On the one hand, she was impressed with herself, on the other, it was going to be virtually impossible to win. 

If Michelle had had any doubt that this wasn’t somehow actually her, it was shattered by the way other Michelle anticipated and parried every single one of her moves even before she decided to make them herself. 

It went further though. She could anticipate other Michelle’s moves as well. 

It was what she had always loved about fighting. In a fight, each individual was stripped down to their base instincts and their will to survive. 

Whoever had the greater will, lived to fight another day. 

Only they were perfectly matched in will, stamina, and strength. 

After getting multiple good punches and kicks in on each other, they had transitioned into a jiu jitsu style of sparing that ended up with Michelle in a head lock on the floor. 

“There are people who need you in the real world, it is time to snap out of it.” Other, Michelle said into her ear. 

Michelle twisted and jerked and successfully broke the hold before securing her other self into an arm hold meant to inflict the most pain possible without actually breaking the bone. 

“That’s a mean one even for you.” Her other self commented before breaking the hold and capturing her between her legs.

“Listen, I know how much you love him. I know how good it feels to be here with him. I know how tired you are of the pain and the responsibility. It’s too much. It would be for anyone. But I have to go back. Tony doesn’t realize how much he needs me. They won’t succeed without me. They don’t have this connection to the lost souls. There is a reason we were chosen. I have to go back.” Michelle sighed and all the fight went out of her body after listening to her other half. 

She was right. 

“I have to go back.” She echoed her own statement. As soon as the words left her mouth, her other self released her and helped her to her feet. 

She heard rather than saw Peter's sigh of relief. 

“You look like shit Jones.” Her other self said with a confident smirk as she wiped the blood dripping from her nose. 

“Yeah well, you didn’t have to go all 'black widow' on me either.” She said back while spitting out a little more blood from her split lip. 

“Are you two done beating the ever-living shit out of each other? Because I would like to kiss my girlfriend goodbye.” Peter said as he pushed to his feet with a concerned look.

“Oh, come on, you enjoyed the show. Admit it- that just fulfilled some deep fantasy of having two girls fight over you. You are probably turned on as hell” Other Michelle said teasingly. 

“If you think I’m responding to that statement, you have obviously underestimated my intelligence.” Peter crossed his arms over his chest and stared other Michelle down.

“That’s kind of the answer right there though, isn’t it?” Michelle teased. Peter’s cheeks went bright red and other Michelle laughed out loud before reaching out to fist bump MJ. 

The moment their hands connected other Michelle disappeared and Michelle felt whole again. 

Head and heart in alignment. 

Awake after a brief bout of insanity. 

“Feeling better?” Peter asked as he came up and wiped the blood that had begun trickling from her nose.

“I don’t know what the hell that was or if this means I have some kind of multiple personality disorder, but I do feel better.” 

“We are going to have to be careful, you and I.” Peter said while placing a kiss on her forehead. 

“No worries, I’m sure my alter ego will come beat the shit out of us both if we get out of line.” Michelle had to make light of the bizarre situation she and Peter had found themselves in, but she knew he was absolutely right. They would always have to keep a leash on the insanely deep connection that ran between them, otherwise they might not see the danger they or anyone else was in.

“I gotta go.” She said while dragging her hand through his curly hair just to remind herself how much she loved the way it felt. Just to remind herself that she could.

“One more thing.” Peter grabbed her hair and kissed her so forcefully that her knees literally gave out from beneath her. One of his hands dropped from her head and bound around her waist to catch her crumbling form. 

The kiss had been so all-consuming that it felt like a punishment when he pulled his lips away. 

“If anyone, including yourself, ever lays a hand on you in front of me again, I am going to rip them apart. You are not a punching bag; you are the love of my life and you need to start valuing yourself as much as I do. Do you understand?”

Um...

Swoon. 

Michelle was still recovering from all of the delicious things his kiss and words had done to her, but she managed to nod. 

Peter’s hand tightened in her hair and he kissed her again with the same intensity as the first one but equally as short lived. It was as if he was trying to pour himself into her through the kiss, as if his lips could convince her that she was the most precious thing in the world to him. 

Turns out he could. 

She couldn’t imagine having to sit back and literally watch Peter tear himself apart. It would have been excruciating not to intervene. He had let her battle it out because it was the fastest way to her feeling whole again, but he had hated every second of it. He had also recognized what she was only now starting to realize about herself. 

She had been at constant odds with herself since she had fallen for Peter. Her identity as the focused selfless agent had been battling with her newly discovered creative and romantic alter ego. She had been constantly tearing herself in two different directions and operating as two completely separate people. It's why she had pushed Peter away when she went on missions, it is why she completely ignored her responsibilities when she was with him. She was afraid of losing either version of herself to the other.

If she was going to survive, if her self-esteem was going to remain intact, she would have to fully accept being both. For this mission she would have to be as tapped into her heart as she was in her head. If she operated with just her head, she would get lost. If she operated with just her heart, she wouldn’t be able to make the tough decisions when they mattered.

Her head and heart were not mutually exclusive.

She didn’t have to be one thing or the other. She could be both. In fact, she could be so much more. 

She could be courageous, dutiful, and self-less while still being feminine, desirable, and vulnerable.

Both versions of herself were powerful parallel truths that operated inside the same soul. 

He wanted her to love both parts of herself as much as he did. 

That’s why her subconscious had brought her here before she left on this mission. 

She was going to have to believe in herself, all of herself, to pull this off. 

“I understand.” She whispered against his lips. 

She smiled. 

“Don’t ever stop reminding me though.” 

She wanted to thank Peter for knowing her even better than she knew herself and loving her imperfections all the same, but there wasn’t time.

The bottom line was that she was feeling strong. She was feeling like herself again. She had knocked herself back into gear and she had to get back to work. 

She pressed a firm kiss against his lips hoping it communicated all of the gratitude and respect she had for him and with their lips still touching, broke the connection as abruptly as it had started. 

*****

Michelle sat straight up with a start and found herself in some sort of recovery room with an IV in her hand. She couldn’t read the script on the bag, but she assumed the purple hued fluid was some sort of electrolyte replacement considering how strong she now felt. 

Amazing what a good sleep could do for your heart and mind. 

A second after she woke up an out-of-breath Kate Bishop flew into the room.

“You gotta go now.” 

“What the hell is going on?” Michelle demanded while leveling the girl with her signature ‘cut the bullshit stare’ she had learned from May. 

“You passed out. You just hit the deck in the dining room and then you wouldn’t wake up! They said you were dehydrated, and your electrolytes were out of wack but even after those were corrected you still didn’t come around.” Kate explained hastily. 

Michelle’s mind rapidly processed the information. That actually made since. She remembered sitting with Carol and then everyone was gone, and she was with Peter. Her subconscious must have reached out to him to stave off the distress she felt at being out of control. Then once he arrived, she hadn’t wanted to come back.

“How long?” Michelle demanded a split second after Kate had finished. 

“Huh? Oh, like twenty hou-” Michelle had ripped the IV from her hand, swung herself off the table and took off at a full tilt sprint toward her room before Kate had even finished the sentence. 

Shit. Shit. Shit. 

“I gotta go.” She yelled over her shoulder. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kate throw her arms up in exasperation. 

“That’s what I have been trying to tell you!”

**** 

As she sprinted toward her room, her mind raced with plans and contingencies. 

She knew Tony would have tried to leave her. 

She had anticipated this.

She had also locked away her suit in a cybernetic case hidden in the ceiling tiles of her room so that he couldn’t take someone else. 

Had it been sneaky? Yes.

Had it been selfish? Absolutely. 

These were desperate times and she was more than desperate to save those who were lost. It was more important to her than anything. 

She still got to see her other half. The rest of the world was as shattered and broken as she had been before she had discovered their connection. If she could get even a fraction of them back than she would do absolutely everything in her power to do so. 

She could hear Kate close on her heals so she asked over her shoulder.

“Have they gone?”

She knew Kate didn’t necessarily have direct knowledge of the plan, but MJ also knew she was a damn good spy and incredibly capable young woman who would have sensed the energy around their mission and investigated. 

Michelle wasn’t disappointed. 

“No, but I saw Scott, Tony, and Steve dismiss themselves early from one of the strategy meetings right after news of your collapse broke and I knew it was too suspicious to be a coincidence.” 

Double shit. They were definitely leaving her and since when was Cap in on it?

More importantly when had she started thinking of him as Cap? She was worse than Peter. 

Michelle practically collided with a body as she flew around a corner but managed to dodge them just in time.

“Sorry!” She shouted over her shoulder. 

She burst into her room and had climbed on top of the desk by the time Kate rounded the corner. 

“Geez your fast, Jones.” She said while resting her hands on her knees and gulping air like a fish out of water. 

Michelle only smirked while she displaced the ceiling tile and threw the heavy case down on her bed ignoring the cloud of dust that had fallen from above. 

“Woah, what else you got up there?” Kate peeked her head under the giant hole in the ceiling while Michelle placed her hands on the print scanner and pricked her finger for a DNA sample. 

“Where the hell did you get that case?” Kate said, undoubtedly nerding out about how cool the technology was. 

“Perks of being acting director of SHIELD.” She said with a wink while whipping the case open and pulling the suit out. “All the toys.”

She hadn’t even warned Kate she just started stripping, donning the suit in record time. 

Michelle was out of her room and sprinting toward the main laboratory before Kate had even fully caught her breath. 

She jumped over Rocket the racoon. 

Spun around Bruce Banner and slid underneath a table that was blocking a hallway. 

She could hear Kate hot on her heals yelling at people to get out of her way. She didn’t know what she had done to earn Kate’s loyalty, but she was grateful to have it. 

“Move!”

“Get out of the way!”

“Director of SHIELD coming through, clear the HALL!”

Even if everyone hadn’t cleared her path, nothing could have stopped her. She was flying faster than she could even control. She had to make it. 

When she made it to the lab, the door was blocked by a large group of distressed looking scientists. The door had been locked from the inside and then blocked with a large pile of equipment that had to weigh multiple tons.

Tony obviously hadn’t wanted to be disturbed. 

Shit, how was she going to get in?

She turned around and was about to sprint to another entrance when she ran directly into Carol’s chest. 

“Woah, where are you going?” Carol asked with a smirk.

“I can’t get into the lab, the door is-“ 

Michelle’s mouth dropped open as Carol’s hands lit up and she shot a beam powerful enough to cut a cut a large circular hole directly through the door and all the equipment on the opposite side. 

“What were you saying about the door?” Carol asked smugly. 

Kate walked up beside them with an awed look on her face that no doubt mirrored the one Michelle was wearing.

“I think I want to marry her.” Kate said dreamily. 

“Ditto.” Michelle said before sprinting through the newly formed tunnel to the laboratory. 

The laboratory was shaking with the power of the quantum generator. Tony had modified it to be even more powerful and the force of its initiation had altered everything in the lab. 

Papers flew on unseen winds, tools shook across the worktables and clattered to the floor. The lights swung precariously from the ceiling flashing and dimming in rhythm with the hum from the quantum generator. 

Michelle tore across the lab faster than she had ever run as she saw three silhouettes step into the bright blue light. 

“Wait!” She screamed but the cacophony of sounds around the laboratory drowned out her voice. The three forms walked into the light tethered together by cord as Michelle pushed her legs even harder making her way across the cavernous laboratory. 

Why did it have to be so big? 

Shit. 

She pulled out her gun and switched it to grappling mode before aiming at the quickly disappearing forms. 

“TONY! You son of a bitch!” 

Michelle didn’t have time to think about what she was doing. She shot the grappling hook blindly into the light while she was still twenty feet away from the rapidly closing gateway.

It hit something and immediately the line snapped with tension.

She jumped. 

Possibly to her death.

Possibly to her future. 

She just jumped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, so sorry this took me ages to update. This chapter is low-key a mess but i'm just happy to have my writing mojo back. 
> 
> Also can we talk about captain marvel? <3
> 
> Also can we talk about those new end game trailers? 
> 
> Marvel really has me in a choke hold right now, for real.


	10. Blue

“In the end, I believe scientists are hopeless romantics desperately in love with the idea that the world makes sense. Scientists have broken hearts and by combining toxic elements and reading the stars, they are able to write poetry.” 

-Royla Asghar

To be fair, Michelle had never actually tripped out on acid, but she was pretty sure this is what that felt like. 

She was weightless. 

Floating. 

No that wasn’t quite it, she was shrinking. 

Molecules appeared as mountains and then grew ever larger. 

There were colors she had never seen. 

Smells she had never even conceived. 

If she hadn’t been so excruciatingly terrified, she might have been able to appreciate how incredibly beautiful it all was. 

Her grappling hook was still attached to something that she couldn’t see pulling her to a place she could scarcely fathom. She was praying it was in fact attached to her friends and not some quantum monster dragging her off to be dinner. 

Quantum monster. Honestly, she couldn’t believe that was a legitimate concern she had. 

Her life was getting too weird. 

Her mind spun with the centrifugal forces pulling her to an unknown fate and soon she had no concept of time. 

No orientation to direction. 

Gravity didn’t exist here or at least not in the same way it did on earth. 

She wasn’t even confident that she could breathe if her suit came off. 

If she was smaller than oxygen, could she still breath it?

Yep, she was officially tripping out. 

After what could have been minutes or possibly days she finally seemed to stop shrinking and her trajectory slammed her right into the back of Tony Stark. 

“What the-?” The automated sound of his voice channeled through her helmet which must have automatically synched to his. Stark really did think of everything.

“Surprised to see me?” Michelle asked with crossed arms as she leveled him with a glare. 

“Would you look at that, sleeping beauty finally rose from the dead. Honestly, we wanted to wait for you but my calculations-“

“Cut the bullshit. You were following some misguided desire to protect me out of the guilt you felt for losing Peter. That is not your choice to make. I have just as much right to give my life for them as you do and if you pay attention, you might just realize how much you need me.” Michelle’s impassioned speech had caused both Cap and Scott to look at her a little closer.

They could look all they wanted. They wouldn’t find her lacking in courage. 

She knew why she was here.

Kind of.

Ok, she had a hunch.

She really hadn’t had time to give it much thought because she had just jumped down some sort of shrink ray and was now apparently in a different realm. 

The realm, as it turned out, was stunning. 

Everything was cast in an orange hue but instead of solid ground and air above, there where just areas of more density and areas of less, all made of the same sparkling energy. She was standing on energy…no that wasn’t quite right but she didn’t have the vocabulary to describe what it was actually like.

If Fitz and Simmons could hear her mind trying to make sense of what she was seeing, they would probably be laughing hysterically.

Tony sighed and it brought her back to the present.

“It wasn’t personal, kid. I just wanted to spare him losing you too.” Tony’s eyes closed briefly before they met hers, already half filled with tears. She forgot that he didn’t know he was still out there, she forgot that he didn’t have the same hope she did. 

She knew he was telling the truth; she knew how much Tony loved Peter and how much it had gutted him to lose him. They had a bond, not unlike a father and son, but somehow even deeper because they had chosen each other. 

It didn’t make her any less pissed at the no-good scoundrel, but it did simmer her desire to slap him across the face. 

Slightly. 

“Don’t call me kid. Now where is the time vortex?” Tony seemed to size her up for a minute and then nodded. 

“If my calculations are correct, it should be here in about five seco-“ He hadn’t even finished the sentence before a tornado of energy became visible barreling toward them at an impossibly fast speed. 

Right. 

Time vortex. 

This was the plan. 

Kind of a shitty plan now that she was staring the tornado looking ball of energy down and realizing she was going to be torn in half. 

“Ok. Stick to the plan. Wherever this thing drops you, you find a way to change the past. Leave a message, steal a stone, loose a fight. Do whatever it takes to make sure that purple bastard can’t win.” Steve had automatically slipped into Captain mode. Despite the fact that he had the least expertise of anyone in their make-shift team, every member seamed to settle at his words. 

She felt like she ought to salute him, give each member a fist bump, or say something meaningful but she never got the chance. 

The vortex swallowed them in an instant. Her body snapped and flung and contorted in what felt like a horror-movie’s version of a fair ride. She felt her tether to the other members snap almost immediately. 

Ok. Don’t panic. 

Just breathe Michelle. 

Inhale. 

Exhale. 

Her body was tumbling and thrashing horribly. Was she falling? What would happen when she arrived? At this velocity, she would either be torn apart or smashed into oblivion. 

Panic crept in. 

She was going to die. 

All of that angst. All of that effort and she was going to die, thirty seconds into her mission. 

No. 

Hold on. 

You can do this.

Inhale. 

Ex-

*****

STEVE ROGERS

Steve cracked his eye open and was relieved to feel that he was on solid ground. 

He couldn’t decide whether he wanted to puke or pass out. Both options sounded more appealing than trying to stand or open his eyes. 

A loud horn honked and his superior reflexes rolled his body out of the way of the loud vintage car just in time as it careened down the poorly paved road. 

I know this road. 

I know these smells.

He knew exactly where he was, but it wasn’t possible. 

Brooklyn.

1940.

A year before he had gotten the serum.

Steve look down and saw that he was still every inch Captain America. Even though he was here, he hadn’t reverted into his old self. 

Steve looked around to catch his bearings and slipped into the familiar sounds and smells of Brooklyn in the forties. 

He could hear the yells of disgruntled drivers. 

He could smell the warm fragrance of a thousand delicious foods battling for dominance. 

He could feel the muggy heat of summer as a sheen of sweat broke out along his spine.. 

He was back!

A sorrow that he hadn’t even known he had been carrying lifted off his shoulders. 

Why had the time vortex deposited him here? Was it random? Coincidental? Could he affect anything by being here?

His frantic questioning was interrupted when he saw someone someone familiar pause in front of an alley across the street from him. 

The skinny young man wasn’t just familiar. 

It was him.

He watched in shock as his pre-serum self jogged down an ally. Steve moved closer and realized it was to stop some men hitting on a woman who was clearly not interested in their advances.

He remembered this day clearly. Probably because this particular fight had hurt…a lot. 

He winced in anticipation as pre-serum Steve successfully distracted the men long enough for the dame to make her escape. 

Unfortunately for his frail little body, he had distracted them with just how much he resembled a punching bag. 

Making himself a target was a successful strategy for saving victims, but not so successful when it came to his own self-preservation.

He took a step forward to defend himself but was beaten to the punch by another. 

Of course. 

James Buchanan Barnes rushed down the alleyway at a full tilt sprint running directly into the largest of the men in what closely resembled a football tackle.

After a whole bunch of scrappy bar-room brawling, James and smaller Steve emerged victorious. The bullies had run out of the alley holding their various wounds, one of which Steve had actually inflicted when he managed to kick the odious man in the stomach after Bucky had tripped him.

“You….have got….to stop…picking fights…” Bucky said between labored breaths as he held his stomach and leaned heavily against the brick side of the building. Bucky always scolded Steve for picking fights, but it didn’t stop him from chasing Steve down every single alleyway and finishing every single fight. 

To Steve, Bucky had been a super hero long before he was captured by Hydra and injected with serums. Bucky’s super power hadn’t come out of a test-tube. Bucky’s super power had always been his loyalty. 

It never wavered. 

Wherever Steve went, no matter the odds, Bucky had always been right beside him. 

Steve’s heart panged when he remembered that Bucky couldn’t follow him down any more alleys or into any more battles. Bucky was gone. 

“They were trying to take advantage of a woman, Buck. You would have done the same thing I had.” his smaller self proclaimed righteously.

Damn, he had been so hard headed. 

Bucky snorted. 

“I might have at least grabbed a bat before though, you idiot.” Bucky pushed himself off the wall before grabbing Steve into a side hug and ruffling his hair. 

Steve had hated when he did that. It made him feel like a kid, when all he had wanted in the world was to be taken seriously as a man. Now he would give just about anything to have himself locked in Bucky’s affectionate head-lock with his hair being ruffled. 

That was his best friend. 

He would go on to be tortured for nearly a century. He would be forced to commit unspeakable acts. This Bucky wouldn’t exist in a few years. 

God, Steve wished he could hug that idiot one more time. Wished he could warn him not to follow him onto that train. Wished he had had time to look for him before he had put that plane down in the ocean.

The familiar promise they had often repeated to each other echoed through Steve’s mind. 

To the end of the line.

They had promised each other that more times than Steve could possibly count or recall. 

Only Bucky had gotten off early and Steve couldn’t quite handle that. They were supposed to be brothers. They were supposed to move into houses next to each other and raise their families together. Steve would marry Peggy and support her as she took over SHIELD. He would go to university and study art and journalism. Bucky would marry some beautiful red head and they would globe-trot around the world before settling back into a too small Brooklyn apartment. They were supposed to grow old and the end of the line was supposed to come naturally after years of friendship and countless happy memories. 

Look what a mess Steve had made of that. 

Steve watched in an emotion laden stupor as Bucky and his younger self made their way to the corner diner where they would undoubtedly try and convince the prettiest girls to dance and get shot down repeatedly. 

Pre-serum Steve looked over his shoulder and before thinking, Steve made direct eye-contact with him. It was just a moment, not long enough for his previous self to decode his future underneath the beard and time warn eyes, but it was a moment none the less. 

Steve turned quickly and walked in the opposite direction, but not before the memory surfaced in his brain. Reflecting the scene from the opposite point of view.

“What’s wrong?” Bucky had asked when he had stopped in his tracks. 

“Nothing, I just thought I saw someone.” He had replied before shaking his head and dismissing the idea that he could ever be someone as powerful as that man in the street.

Had he always seen his future self that day? Or had Steve just altered his own past in some way.

He shook his head. 

This was going to be complicated. 

He needed to get his head out of memory lane and figure out how to save the future. He could still give Bucky and all the other lost souls a chance at life. 

Now he just had to figure out how. 

What could he change in 1940 that would affect the avengers in the future? If he intervened with the tesseract would it alter too many futures? Would he end up hurting more people than he saved? What if he never became Captain America? Would New York have been destroyed?

“It’s a brain teaser. Isn’t it?” A voice sounded from directly behind him as he cut through a dark alley. 

Steve spun around ready to fight whoever that voice belonged to. 

Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw. 

A very tall, very blue, very muscular man stood in front of him as if it was completely normal to be standing naked in the middle of a Brooklyn alley with a complete stranger. 

“Who the hell are you?” Steve demanded distantly wishing he had some sort of shield with him. 

“My name is Kronos. But what is important is actually why you are here captain.”

Ok. There is a blue man. 

The sheer fact that he was able to have that thought without laughing or panicking was evidence of how bizarre his life had been since waking up. 

Maybe this man could help him figure out why he was here. Maybe this man was why he was here. 

What the hell kind of name was Kronos?

Was he an alien? 

Why was he blue?

His name sounds like the Greek root of time, it couldn’t possibly be a coincidence.

“Kronos?” Steve asked hopefully. 

“I’m here to help Captain.” Steve didn’t know why, but he immediately trusted the heavily muscled blue man…or individual. Steve couldn’t be sure of his gender. Maybe his species didn’t have genders like humans did. 

Regardless, there was something in his eyes that made Steve think he knew more than he was letting on. 

“How did you know I would be here?” Steve asked incredulously. 

“I make it my business to know a lot of things, but your presence here was actually by my design. I was warned not to interfere with earth’s timeline directly but reaching you all through the quantum realm was too good of a loophole to ignore.” Steve took a deep breath to steady himself. If this guy was telling the truth, then he might be the only person with enough knowledge to help them get everyone back. 

If he was telling the truth…

“I want to be clear. The only reason I am here is to get the half of the universe that Thanos snapped away back to where they belong. Is that your purpose as well?”

“Is there any other purpose at this point?” The man replied in his deep voice. There was something in the timber of it that made Steve think the man was thousands of years old and wise beyond comprehension, but he couldn’t place exactly what it was. 

“That wasn’t an answer.” Despite his intriguing voice, Steve hadn’t been a fan of that answer. He didn’t have time for vague statements. He needed answers. He needed solutions and he needed them now. 

The blue man bowed his bald head and sighed. 

“What makes you think that my universe was not torn in half Captain? The snap did not exclude anyone. I lost my brothers and sisters, just as you have lost yours. I have as much stake in this as you.” Steve was tempted to believe the emotion in his voice, but he had further questions. 

“If you are powerful enough to control time, or at least do whatever you did to bring me back here, why can’t you just go back and stop Thanos yourself?” 

“A very good question. The answer is complicated. If I did what you asked, the ramifications would be significant. Time does not like to be tampered with; she is a fickle thing. There is only one path that leads to an outcome with acceptable casualties and that fate is entwined with your team Captain. Follow me, I’ll show you.” 

The blue man waved his hand and created what appeared to be a portal right beside them before stepping through it and disappearing. 

Steve had a split second to decide his path.

There really was no choice, but it didn’t make the decision any less painful.

With a final glance back at his home and a final inhale of the nostalgic aromas wafting through the air, Steve Rogers stepped through the portal and became, once again, a man out of time. 

*****

“All the effort we spent getting to the quantum realm and you brought me back to where I started?” Steve asked incredulously as he took in the bright sun rising over the mountains of Wakanda. 

“No, I brought you to where you are needed most, and it is also a week after you dove into the quantum realm.” Kronos explained patiently. 

Huh.

Steve had really intelligent friends, so the feeling of not totally understanding what was going on around him was a familiar one. However, with Kronos that feeling was multiplied tenfold. Steve felt very much like a child trying to read for the first time. He knew what he should understand, and he knew he could speak all the words, but still his comprehension fell short. 

“What’s the mission?” He questioned immediately. 

Kronos chuckled. 

“Something funny?” Steve asked a little miffed that the blue god seemed to be in on a joke that Steve was the punchline of. 

He couldn’t help that he didn’t have super-human intelligence bordering on clairvoyance. He had gotten dealt a different hand by whatever cosmic forces decided on who got what super powers. 

“Nothing.” Kronos shook his head slightly and then smiled. “I’ve just been studying the Avengers for so long and you are exactly what I thought you’d be.” 

Ugh. 

Steve had heard that before. 

On the one hand, he was glad that he had a reputation of integrity and that people could predict his character. On the other, there was so much of himself that no one in this time understood. So much if himself he had left in 1941. 

He had always been a lover, not a fighter. Hard to believe when you tallied up the amount of fights he had started, but it was true. He only fought to protect justice, life, and innocence, he took no pleasure in it.

He had been an artist. Now he couldn’t remember the last time he picked up a pencil other than to add something to the ever-elongating list of pop culture references that he could never seem to fully catch up on.

He had loved to cook. Now he only ate what was served to the unit he was leading and hadn’t created a new recipe since long before he was frozen. 

He had loved to sing. Sure, he had been rubbish at it, but that hadn’t stopped him from loving every single musical he had even seen and singing the songs on the way to work every day. He had even been known to break out in a tap dance if the mood struck him. 

His mom had taught him to tap before tuberculosis killed her. 

His heart ached for the thousandth time that day.

He had day dreamed often of falling in love with a beautiful soul and whisking whomever it was onto the dancefloor whenever he got the chance.

Life had been simpler then in many ways. 

People didn’t have a world of entertainment and knowledge in their pocket waiting to be tapped into at the slightest threat of boredom. When he was growing up, boredom was the precursor for creativity. He would want to learn something, and he would end up in the stacks of the library lost in the pages of a novel for hours. When he missed a friend, he would sit down and write a letter. Nowadays, people would send a single emoji or worse, a meme, to communicate that emotion. It was accomplished and forgotten in a matter of seconds and no real thought or effort was needed. 

While he loved this world and he was grateful to have been a part of the Avengers, deep down, he still longed to go home. He kept hoping one day he would wake up and be satisfied with the fast pace of the modern world and its user-friendly infrastructure, but that day hadn’t come yet. 

There was only one person who had known Steve for who he truly was. Not a star-bangled man with a plan, but a hopeless romantic longing for the home that no longer existed. 

Bucky understood Steve.

Only now, he had lost him too. 

He looked up and made eye contact with the blue giant in front of him and became aware of how uncomfortably long he had been lost in his own thoughts. 

Steve cleared his throat to clear the emotion gathering there. 

He needed to focus. 

He needed to fight. 

Millions of lives depended on it.

“Glad all the stories are true, now why am I here?” Steve squared his shoulders and met the stranger’s appraising gaze with determination. 

Kronos stared out over the sunlit horizon for a long moment before turning back and delivering the words that momentarily stopped Steve’s heart. 

“You’re here to die Captain.”

***** 

MICHELLE JONES

Somewhere in the quantum realm…

After falling for what felt like centuries and nearly voiding the entire contents of her stomach multiple times, Michelle finally slowed to a stop before plopping down on her stomach on a semi-solid surface. 

Now all she had to do was wait for her head to stop spinning and tell whoever’s blue feet where in her face to beat it. 

Ugh. What she wouldn’t do for a quick nap. 

How the hell was she supposed to navigate this other realm?

When would her head stop spinning?

How was she going to help?

She couldn’t even keep her eyes open without wanting to hurl. 

Focus, Jones. 

Check your suit and vitals. 

Suit intact. Vitals stable. 

At least, the suits had worked. 

She wasn’t dead yet. 

Although, she felt incredibly weird.

Ugh, when would the ringing in her ears sto-

Wait. 

Blue feet?

Michelle opened her eyes again to assure herself the blue feet she had glimpsed had been some sort of time vortex induced hallucination. Unfortunately for her, the feet were still there. 

Ok. 

Don’t panic.

I am probably dreaming. 

To assure herself that she really was losing her mind, she reached out and poked the foot with her finger. 

“Ouch.” Said a deep voice from far above her. 

“Holy shit.”

Michelle threw her body backwards, rolling away from the blue footed monster and landed in a crouched defensive position. 

It wasn’t just blue feet. 

It was a man whose skin was a stunning shade of blue, too unique a color and too homogenous to skin to be painted on. 

The man was blue. 

The man was also very tall. He had to be approaching seven feet. Thick veins covered muscles that spanned his entire body, yet he still appeared quite lean. There was no hair anywhere on his form and his bald head reflected the orange hues of their other worldly environment ever so slightly. 

He was unlike any being Michelle had ever laid eyes on. 

Beautiful. 

Mysterious. 

Dangerous.

Michelle’s eyes flicked down on their own volition and was relieved to see that there were no obvious pieces of his anatomy exposed to the elements like the rest of his body was. 

Strange. 

He looked almost human except for the curious azure hue to his skin and the obvious lack of male anatomy. The only reason she had assumed he was a he was the deep timber of his voice. 

Maybe he was female. Maybe it was neither. 

Who or what was this being?

Only one way to find out. 

“Who are you?” Michelle demanded in a voice that betrayed the fear she felt towards this alien species. 

Good work Jones, you meet intelligent life from another realm and the first thing you do is poke it and then yell at it fearfully. Way to represent humanity. 

“My name is Kronos, I’m here to help you Mrs. P-, uh my apologies, I got ahead of myself, Ms. Jones.”

“Uh…” Michelle was literally speechless. 

First of all, the guy who looked like an extra for The Blue Man Group knew her name, second of all, he seemed to think he could help her. 

How could she possibly trust him? It all seemed way to convenient.

How could she possibly ignore him? It couldn’t possibly be a coincidence that he was waiting at the bottom of whatever vortex she had ended up in. 

“What are you?” Michelle’s hand rose up of its own volition and felt the skin covering his chest. Up close, the skin had an almost opalescence to it, but the texture reminded her of a shark’s skin. Rough and impenetrable. 

Michelle could have slapped her own forehead for her actions. She was asking incredibly rude questions while touching this alien without any express consent to do so. 

She was really sucking at the inter galactic personal affairs portion of her job. 

Then again, How to Communicate with an Alien Species while Trapped in the Quantum Realm 101 wasn’t an elective offered at SHIELD’s academy. 

To her relief the man chuckled at her obviously rude behavior. 

Michelle felt the vibrations of the chuckle under her hand that, to her horror, was still on his chest. For some inexplicable, reason those vibrations calmed her nerves as did the steady beat of a heart underneath her palm.

She finally removed her hand from the stranger and looked up apologetically. She found no condemnation in his ancient eyes. 

“I used to be like you, young one. I was a scientist always curiously exploring the universe. Destiny had other plans and now, I am something more.” He said cryptically. His voice had these notes that simultaneously made Michelle think of Morgan Freeman’s narrating, speeches from ancient Greece, and leading men from 1950’s black and white films. 

Not a very clear picture, but the tones of his words were nothing like she had ever heard before. She wished she could sit and pick his brain about everything he knew and everything he was, but that ever-present pressure on her heart reminded her that she was here for a mission. 

Focus on the what is important. 

I need answers. 

“Ok, on the scale of one to unhelpful, that response was useless.” Michelle crossed her arms and glared at the strange character in front of her. Fortunately for her, regardless of whether he was human, alien, or other, he wasn’t immune to a highly annoyed female staring at him with crossed arms. 

He chuckled again. 

“Ever so headstrong, Ms. Jones, but I guess I should have predicted that.”

Predicted. He knew he was going to meet me. What the hell is going on here?

“If you absolutely must know. I am an Eternal.”

Cool. Cool. 

Was she supposed to know what the hell that meant?

“So, what is your super power? Other than appearing at the bottom of time vortexes naked?” Michelle was shocked with how comfortable she felt with this complete anomaly, but she was trusting the age-old instinct that told her that if he wanted to hurt her, he already would have. Good humor aside, the man’s physical presence gave the distinct impression that he could squash her without so much as breaking a sweat. Despite the insanity of the situation, she trusted him. 

Her morning had begun with her beating the shit out of herself, so on the crazy meter this was barely even registering. 

Kronos laughed outright this time. He had a beautiful laugh and for some strange reason Michelle felt a spark of pride for having elicited the reaction. 

“I find your candor refreshing Ms. Jones. It’s been a thousand years since anyone has spoken to me so plainly…”

Gulp. 

Ok. So, he is super old. 

Duh, Michelle. 

He said he was eternal. No that wasn't quite right. He said he was an Eternal. Strange. 

Focus. 

“…I was experimenting with cosmic energy and there was an accident. My original physical body was destroyed, but I came back in this form along with super-genius intelligence, telepathy, and cosmic awareness.”

I guess humility wasn’t on the list. 

Kronos laughed out loud again, almost as if he had heard her. 

Oh shit. 

Telepathy. 

Can you hear my thoughts?

“Yes, Ms. Jones. I can.”

Holy Shit! 

Sorry! I can’t seem to stop saying that…or thinking that…shit.

This is insane. 

I am insane. 

“You are not, and I find that it is less confusing if you speak what comes to your mind rather than relying on my abilities to hear it. Our thoughts can be fickle things, we don’t always mean them.”

That was certainly true. 

Ok. 

You got this.

Focus. 

Fate has literally dropped a blue genie out of a time vortex into your lap. What are you going to do with him? 

She had so many questions for him, but more importantly she had to figure out how he could help destroy Thanos.

“Where are we?” She asked forcing herself to adopt a more relaxed body posture. Somewhere in their brief interaction, she had made the decision to trust the blue man. She was far out of her depth in this realm and if she had learning anything this past year it was that she needed allies. 

Sticking with the clairvoyant immortal seemed like her most logical option at the moment. 

Geez, she was going to need some serious therapy after all this was over. 

“We are still in the quantum realm.”

“Where are my friends?” She asked as soon as he had answered. 

“They are exactly where they need to be.”

“That wasn’t a helpful answer.” She parried. 

“Perhaps not, but it was an honest one.” He responded calmly. 

“Why are you here? Why are you interested in helping me? Why out of the four of us am I the one you chose to speak to? How can I know you are not just a projection of the reality stone? What do you know about Thanos? Why did you know me before we met?” 

Peter had told Michelle once that she had a really bad habit of stacking so many questions that it was impossible to answer all of them, but she couldn’t have stopped herself if she had tried. 

For every question she thought of, a hundred more piled up behind it. 

“I am here to help you because Thanos’ actions have caused a severe shift in cosmic energy. I am certainly not the keeper of time and space, there is only One who is capable of that, but I am tasked with mending the injustice that was performed in the name of balance. I have already visited each of your friends, although you are curiously the only one to ask that question and I am very real, although for that answer, you are simply going to have to trust me. I must admit that my actions are not purely selfless. I lost people in the dusting whom I cared deeply for and in every possible scenario, you are a key part of getting them back. So, in reality, I need you, just as much as you need me, Ms. Jones.”

Gulp.

That was a pretty good answer. 

“But why me?” Michelle asked again. 

There was an inkling in the back of her mind that this must have something to do with her connection to Peter, but the overwhelming thoughts were those screaming her inadequacy to be of any assistance to this cosmic entity. 

She was just a girl. 

She was just a human. 

She didn’t even have any super-powers. 

“All the answers you seek will be revealed, but first, I would like to take you somewhere.” The blue man intoned while holding out his hand to Michelle. 

“Where?” She asked automatically. 

“The question is not where, Ms. Jones, but when.”


	11. Plan

“It’s ironic isn’t it? How hope keeps us breathing just to kill us in the end.”  
-Nicole Lyons

“Alright, father time. So, you’re about to take me on some magical journey through the cosmos and I’m going to what?” Tony said with crossed arms to the blue avatar-like giant. 

Honestly, what the fuck. 

He had known the time vortex would be a head trip, but he hadn’t expected this shit. 

“I cannot control time, Mr. Stark. I only possess enough intelligence to accurately predict the time vortexes and where the storms will drop you.” Kronos was calm and cool headed which only annoyed Tony further. 

Regardless of how Tony felt about this asshole showing up, he was acutely aware of how much he needed him. Tony hadn’t had time to figure out how to truly predict the vortexes trajectory, only that it wouldn’t drop him in some alternate universe. 

He hoped. 

Shit. 

He was going to have to hang out with the blue-skinned narcissist. 

“You called it a storm, why?” Despite his annoyance at being ambushed by the smurf, Tony’s rational mind was catching up to this new opportunity and was already eager to solve the mystery of the vortexes. 

“Time vortexes occur as a result of disruptions in the time space continuum and they are energized by cosmic energy. When Thanos snapped half the universe away the shift in cosmic energy was too sudden and too dramatically weighted toward death for the cosmos to possibly equalize naturally. Time vortexes used to be incredibly rare with maybe one occurring for every 50 of your human years…now they are everywhere and constantly growing stronger. They feed on the rage and heartbreak of the entire universe. They are the checks and balances to what Thanos did.”

“So, the universe created a loop hole to change what happened?” If this was real, then the time vortexes where the solution they had been praying for all along. 

Just one question came to mind. 

“So why haven’t you just gone back and changed what happened?”

“Too much fallout. I was warned against interfering and I must honor the sorcerer’s wishes.”  
Tony had been examining the substances around him, when his head snapped up.

“Strange. Strange sent you?” Tony’s heartbeat sped up as a new hope sparked in his soul. This wasn’t a coincidence at all. That sneaky wizard had planned this. Maybe this was what he had seen, maybe this was the endgame after all.

“Yes, and since he is the only being who has actually seen us win, I’m planning on following his instructions.” Kronos said resolutely. 

“What were the instructions. Kronos, you have to tell me what to do.” Tony typically didn’t like to beg. He hated the feeling of being at the mercy of anyone other than himself, but the dusting had changed him. He was a desperate man, and all pride aside, he would do anything to get those souls back. 

“It has to be the Avengers. Your fates are entwined with the mad titan’s. Neither can exist without the other.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Fury bubbled in Tony’s stomach. He wouldn’t sacrifice his team, that’s what had started all this in the first place. 

A voice deep inside his head whispered the logic of this solution despite the dissent of his heart. 

Six lives for billions. 

“It is not so literal a prediction, Mr. Stark, but I do have instructions on where to take each of you.” 

Tony’s heart ached. 

He now had a lead on how to save the universe, but it might mean losing his whole world. 

That was the price.

He knew he was willing to pay it and he knew his friends would gladly pay it too. 

Tony’s eyes flipped up to Kronos’ and he cleared his throat of the emotion gathering there. Then he said the words that threatened to break the shards of his heart irrevocably. 

“Whatever it takes.” 

*****

SCOTT LANG 

“Mr. Lang?” A deep voice sounded from behind him. 

Scott sighed and turned back around to face Kronos. 

Kronos had showed up out of nowhere and just dropped a bomb of knowledge on Scott. 

“So you’re telling me that this-“ Scott ran his hand through the sparkling energy surrounding him. “-has the power to clone the infinity stones?”

“Quantum energy can’t exactly clone them, but it can mirror and harness their energy for a short time. Especially now that so much quantum energy was released by the snap. Every soul that was taken, save for one, had to send their energy somewhere. Matter and energy cannot be destroyed. Only temporarily reformulated. When that many lives disintegrated, the quantum realm absorbed their energy. Thanos didn’t realize it, but by destroying so many lives, he created the instrument of his own destruction.”

“So, if we do this, how do we get them all back?” Scott questioned. He was all for killing the purple bastard who had destroyed their world, but if it was just revenge and they didn’t get anyone back, it didn’t seem so important. 

“Once the stones are separated, they can be used against each other. Ms. Jones and I are going to ensure that the souls who were lost have a way back when that happens. You just have to make sure it can.”

“So, we need to clone each of the six infinity stones? Won’t harnessing that much power take a toll on whoever uses it? Rocket told me the power stone nearly killed all the guardians when they tried to harness it together and one of them was half-celestial…whatever that means.” Scott paced as nervous energy bubbled inside of him. 

“There will be a toll yes, but it will be far less than the one Thanos has extracted.” Kronos said solemnly. 

Scott knew he had to do this. He would accompany each of them to a point in history where the stones had manifested and collect the energy needed. 

“How would we harness the energy, what is powerful enough to cage it?” Scott wondered aloud while running his hand through the sparkling fields around him.

He felt sick. 

Yes, he would be saving half the universe, but he would also be personally escorting six of the most incredible and selfless individuals on earth to their deaths. 

“Mr. Stark is working on the technology. You will all meet in Wakanda a week from today.” There was a pregnant pause where neither individual spoke, just silently ruminated on the sacrifices ahead. 

“I need to hear you say you can do this, Mr. Lang. There will not be a second chance.” Kronos prompted seriously. 

There wasn’t really a choice here and he knew that. 

Six lives in exchange for billions. 

In exchange for his family. 

It didn’t make it any less gut-wrenching. 

Scott sighed. 

“Whatever it takes.” 

*****

STEVE ROGERS 

“Nat, Clint, Banner. I need to speak with you.” Steve strode into the common room and every single head snapped toward him in shock. 

“Where the hell did you go?” Natasha shot to her feet and strode over to him with that familiar glint of determination sparkling in her eyes. 

Over the past few years, Natasha had become one of Steve’s best friends. Their time in hiding only served to cement the friendship further. Steve knew Natasha would agree to the insane plan without question, which was why he was having so much trouble looking her in the eye. 

“It’s complicated.” Steve said honestly while scanning the room for the blonde headed god of thunder. “Where is Thor?” 

Clint and Banner had joined them in the doorway of the room. 

Banner looked down right haggard with hair sticking out in every direction and dark circles highlighting the wrinkles around his eyes. Ever since he arrived, he had spent every waking moment with Shuri seeking any technological advantage for their inevitable standoff with Thanos. Steve knew the look in his eye. He had spoken with him many times, but Banner felt an unproportionable amount of guilt for not helping more on the day of the invasion. His angry green alter ego hadn’t come out to play and he hadn’t come out since.

Clint was holding a steaming cup of black coffee and a quick glance at the empty pot on the counter confirms Steve’s suspicions that this was not his first. The man drank coffee like his life depended on it, anytime of the day, anywhere they were, there was always a mug in his hand. It was good to see that despite the profound change in Clint’s ideals and appearance, he really still was the same caffeine addicted agent unwaveringly willing to sacrifice it all for his friends. 

“Probably easier to find Carol.” Clint said with a smirk before taking a gulp of coffee, Natasha punched him in the arm hard enough for him to splutter and send the brown liquid down his chin.

“Hey, easy with those guns Widow.” Clint exclaimed. “I’m more fragile than I once was.”

“What do you mean?” Steve asked, mystified by the exchange. 

“He means that Goldilocks seems to have a bit of a crush on the new recruit.” Banner explained with a glint in his eye. Steve knew they needed to talk about what Kronos had told him, but he couldn’t resist giving them one more happy memory goofing off with their friends. 

“Really?” Steve asked amused. “And here I thought he would get over Jane.”

“Oh, he got over Jane. Trust me.” Banner said with an outright smirk. 

“That sounds juicy. Banner what do you say you give me a mission report from Sakaar?” Clint asked while wagging his eye brows mischievously. 

“Shut up. Both of you. I knew I shouldn’t have told you.” Natasha crossed her arms and let her grumbles fade off beyond recognition. “Loose lipped, no good…”

“Who has loose lips?” Thor asked in his typically gregarious manner while striding up behind Steve with his signature smile. The light in his eyes had faded considerably, but then again, he had lost his entire world and nearly all of his people before Thanos had even arrived. Steve had been meaning to check in with him, but he already knew his handsome friend wasn’t ok. It seemed redundant to ask. Just the fact that he was still standing after all he had lost had to be a herculean effort. Steve didn’t want to remind him of the pain if he could help it. 

“Nothing.”

“No one.” 

Clint and Banner shouted simultaneously, bringing Steve back to the present. Natasha snorted. 

“Subtle, boys.” 

For a moment, Steve was transported back to Avengers HQ in the early day of the team. The days when they still believed they couldn’t lose. The days that were filled with banter and pranks between big wins and ridiculous parties. 

Tony always threw the best parties. 

The thought of his friend sent a pang of pain through his heart and his focus returned. 

“We need to talk…. in private.” Natasha’s eyes narrowed. Steve could tell she had already deduced the gravity of his impromptu meeting. She read him like a book. 

“I know a place.” She said confidently and then strode out of the room. 

None of the remaining heroes hesitated in following her lead. 

*****

NATASHA ROMONOV 

Nat walked purposefully toward the cave where Okoye had taken her on one of their first morning runs in Wakanda. 

They had run into each other on a trail long before the sun had ever stirred and decided immediately to finish their routes together. They had run countless miles together since then and subsequently, Nat had gained another friend.

Additionally, spending so much time running and drilling with Okoye had given Nat a comfort with the terrain surrounding the heart of Wakanda. It was not only a strategic advantage, but a personal one as well. 

Natasha could only feel totally comfortable in a place if she knew every possible escape route available to her. Call it a personal flaw, but she couldn’t stand being trapped. 

During her training in Russia, her mistress had locked her in 4-foot by 4-foot metal boxes with no conceivable escape route. The purpose of the exercise was to drive her to panic and then condition her over time to control that reaction. Natasha had excelled at all of her training and passed that test with flying colors, once staying in the box for 72 hours without so much as an increase in heartrate. Unfortunately, passing the test hadn’t removed the gut-wrenching anxiety she had of ever being trapped again. 

Trapped in a small space. 

Trapped in a situation. 

Trapped by another human. 

The feeling of being trapped was intolerable to her and her freedom was her most highly valued asset. 

Without it, she crumbled. 

Ironic now that she thought about it. 

She had become completely ensnared in the Avengers. 

She knew she was trapped by her devotion to them, but for the first time in her life she couldn’t find a way to extricate herself. Even more alarming, she didn’t want to. 

She wasn’t sure when it had happened exactly, but shortly after the Battle of New York her heart had decided that the Avengers were her family. They were the home she had been searching for and running from her entire life. She would do anything to protect them. She would do anything to keep them together. 

She trusted them. 

To another person this would sound like a completely logical and mundane statement about a group of people who had experienced so much together, but to Nat, this was profound. 

She trusted them. Despite the years of psychological and physical torture meant to turn her into a heartless weapon of destruction, they had proven she was capable of more. She was capable of loyalty. She was capable of love. 

Her feet crunched softly on the gravel spilling out of the cave as she ascended the final crest of the hill. 

She hadn’t had to look back to make sure her friends were following her; she had known in her soul that they would. 

Natasha couldn’t look back because she knew she would lose the very precarious grip she had on her emotions if she looked any of them in the eye. 

The determined spy led the group to a cavern that was surrounded by waterfalls. The cacophony of sound that surrounded the natural chamber made it the perfect private meeting space. Free from prying ears or curious eyes. 

She turned on her heal to face Steve. 

She didn’t know exactly what he was going to say, but she had seen the pain in his eyes, and she knew him well enough to know it would be bad. 

“Ok, Captain. The floor is yours.” She said with a confidence she did not truly feel. She was terrified of what he would say. Hell, these days, she was just terrified. Period. 

“Thanks, Nat.” Every individual in the group waited patiently as Steve took a deep breath and collected himself, the levity of their previous interaction forgotten under the weight of their reality. 

“Tony and I went to the quantum realm with Scott and Michelle.” A collective gasp echoed from each of the members in the circle. 

Logically, they had all deduced that the quantum realm was where the missing individuals had been. However, Steve’s admission still sent a wave of unease and frustration through the circle of friends. 

“Why didn’t you tell us before?” Clint asked immediately. 

“What did you find? Were the time vortexes active?” Bruce interjected. 

“You should not have gone without us.” Thor said forcefully. 

“Stop.” Natasha had wanted to echo every one of their statements and add a few more, but deep down she knew there was more to Steve’s story than a recreational tour of the quantum realm. “Listen to what he has to say.”

Steve swallowed. 

“We wore life support suits that were designed by Reed Richards for survival in the most hostile environments and modified by Tony for maximum power and communication range.”

“How the hell did you get those?” Banner interjected, despite Nat’s glare. 

“Michelle stole them. That is how she found Kate Bishop. I am not 100% on those details because I only discovered their plan a few nights before we left. I found Tony buried in plans and spreadsheets and wore him down until he read me in on the situation. I recommended we recruit Scott to come along.”

“So, it was Tony who came up with the brilliant idea to jump into another realm we know nothing about and risk the lives of his team and a teenage girl… a kid. Is there no limit to who he will exploit? He never met a crazy idea he didn’t love.” Banner responded with mild disgust. Banner and Tony were incredibly close, their mutual love of science and discovery ensured they spent more time with one another than almost anyone else, but their ideologies and worldviews differed so dramatically it was a miracle they could ever be in the same room together. 

Natasha felt immediately defensive of Michelle. 

“She’s not a kid. She is an incredible agent and if she went into that generator she went because she wanted to.” 

“That doesn’t mean he should’ve let her.” Clint interjected. 

“Let her?!!” Natasha felt her temper flare and she took a step toward her oldest friend. She didn’t care how many times they had saved each other’s lives; she wouldn’t let Michelle be painted out to be some helpless irresponsible girl.

Natasha had trained Michelle personally. She knew how capable she was. 

Nat’s heart panged when she realized that her anger was actually directed at herself because deep down under years of bravado and fighting to be treated as an equal, her sentimentality actually agreed with them. 

She was scared for Michelle. 

She didn’t want to lose another member of her family, especially not one with so much life to live. 

Damn it. What had Tony been thinking?

Breathe, Natasha. 

Focus on what is causing you distress. 

She inhaled and exhaled slowly while listening to the men bicker.

“Is she okay?” Nat asked softly to Steve, effectively diffusing the tensions in the group. 

“I don’t know. I believe she is. Kronos said she had an important role to play in all this, but I don’t understand what it is yet. He said it was need to know.” Steve said solemnly. “…and for what it is worth, Nat is right. Michelle was right there beside Tony doing whatever it took to get us to the time vortexes, Tony tried to leave her, and she jumped through right after us and demanded to be a part of it. I haven’t seen courage like that in a while.”

Natasha’s heart warmed. Of course, Steve would get it. He always did. He always saw the potential in people. He always believed that battles were won because of great men and women, not great weapons or perfect strategy. 

“After we were swallowed by the time vortex, I woke up in 1940 and there was a man there named Kronos.”

“You mean that in a metaphorical sense, right? Like you dreamed of being in 1940 but you were actually in the quantum realm?” Clint asked in disbelief. 

Nat saw the weight over Steve’s shoulders and knew before he responded, that despite how unbelievable it was, he had been in 1940. He had been home. 

“No, I mean the vortex literally displaced me in time and took me to the 1940s.” Steve held up his hand to stop Bruce’s next question. “Before you ask, I have no idea how it works. Fortunately, their was someone who did. Kronos is an Eternal and he is able to predict the trajectory of the vortexes, thereby giving him the ability to enter the timeline as he wishes. He brought me back here with a mission.”

“Time travel, Kronos is capable of time travel?” Banner said scratching his head, no doubt already considering the ramifications of altering the time line. 

“Great. Let’s go back and destroy the Mad Titan and get half the universe back.” Thor interjected immediately assuming an aggressive battle-ready posture. 

“It can’t be that simple.” Banner said immediately, clearly having a sounder understanding of the delicacy of time. 

“It is not that easy. In every future that anyone tried that, even more lives were destroyed.” Steve said calmly. Each member of the group looked up at each other with the ghosts of everyone they had lost in their eyes, none of them could imagine losing anything more.

“Go on…” Nat prompted when Steve was silent for a few heavy moments. 

“There is a chance of beating Thanos, but the cost is high.” Steve finally looked up and met the gaze of each of the extraordinary people in the group. “Kronos has a way of cloning the power of the infinity stones with quantum energy. That is what Lang is working on....but the energy needs a living conduit to leave the quantum realm.”

“What does that mean?” Banner asked. 

“Our mission, if you choose to be a part--“ Steve didn’t even get a chance to finish the sentence. 

“Oh, cut the shit, Steve, you know we’re in. Get to the point.” Clint said succinctly. He had effectively summarized what every member of the group had wanted to say. 

Steve smiled sadly and nodded.

“We will be the conduits for the energy. Each of us will carry the power of a single stone and we will take the fight to Thanos on Titan. If we can destroy the gauntlet, then he can be beaten. With the added strength of our new recruits, we can finally put that purple bastard in the ground.” 

“Hell yeah. When do we start?” Clint said excitedly. A new hope sparked between each of the Avengers, energizing them for their mission ahead. 

“What about the souls we’ve already lost?” Thor asked quietly.

“I’m not sure. I know that is not the answer you wanted to hear, but it is the only one I have. Kronos is working on a plan to get them back, but for that to happen, we have to take Thanos down first. At the end of the day, we may not be able to save them, we will most likely all die ourselves, but our last act can be to avenge them. We can finish this journey, the way we started it. Standing against the greatest power in the universe. Together.”

There was a short pause before anyone spoke. 

“I’m in.” Nat’s voice rung out clearly. “Whatever it takes.”

“Whatever it takes.” Clint echoed.

“Whatever it takes.” Thor added. 

“Whatever it takes.” Banner nodded. 

Steve Smiled.

“Well in that case…” Steve stood up tall and took a deep breath. Each member of the group mirrored his posture as they looked at each other proudly. 

“Avengers…”

Before Steve could finish the statement, a loud clanking came from behind one of the waterfalls and a moment later Tony Stark stumbled into the chamber in a half-destroyed iron man suit. 

He hit the button on his chest and the remaining pieces fell away. 

Tony stepped out of the rubble and straightened his suit jacket. 

“I cannot believe you were about to do that without me.” He said with his signature sass. 

Steve immediately sighed in relief and extended his hand to shake Tony’s. 

“You get lost or something?” Steve taunted good naturedly.

“Oh, was there a meeting? I didn’t get the page.” Tony jested back.

“Oh, come on, Tony, you know pagers are a bit too high tech for this fossil.” Nat interjected while throwing her arms around Tony in a tight hug.

“I got my invite via carrier pigeon.” Clint added with a smirk. 

“You guys are assholes.” Steve said with a chuckle. 

Every member of the group looked at each other and in unison yelled out. 

“Language!” 

Steve flipped them all the bird.

The laughter that ensued echoed off the walls of the cave and for a suspended moment everything was as it should be. They were friends laughing about an old joke and taking one last moment to be nothing more than that.

Only after a few long minutes of teasing and remembering inside jokes did the group of old friends finally sober. 

“Nat and I will brief Okoye and Carol. They will coordinate the destruction of Thanos after the gauntlet is destroyed and the defense of earth from any Outriders that show up. Square away your personal affairs. We leave in an hour.” 

Natasha nodded but didn’t move immediately. 

She didn’t have any personal affairs to square away. 

Her family was right here. 

***** 

TONY STARK 

Steve held him back with a hand on his shoulder as he turned to leave the cavern. 

“Where were you?” 

Tony saw all of the scenes from that past week flash behind his eyes. 

Tears gathered in his eyes as the fear, guilt, joy and hope smothered him at once. 

Steve’s eyes closed slowly, and he nodded before taking his old friend into a tight hug. 

“Me too….me too.”


	12. Tony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ENDGAME SPOILERS. 
> 
> I'm pretty sure everyone who is reading fanfiction has seen endgame already, but just in case...there are spoilers ahead. 
> 
> So, I wrote this chapter and a few of the next ones before endgame came out. I was torn about finishing this fic now that endgame had happened and was so incredible, but i decided to go for it. It goes without saying that there will be some differences, so consider this an AU from here on out. The only thing I changed about this chapter after the movie was adding morgan's quote...i love you 3,000. Because that wrecked me and it fit too perfectly into what i had already written. Also in the movie, Morgan's middle initial is H, but in this fic she was named after Tony so her middle name is Anthony. <3 
> 
> I have this head cannon that she grows up to be this sassy, sort of edgy teen with a huge heart and ends up going by Tony and her and Peter and shuri become the tech gurus for the next generation of heroes. I also think she will get her PHD in quantum physics and spend a ton of time studying time vortexes so that she can master time travel and go back and see her dad before he dies. *Sobs quietly*
> 
> anyways, I hope you enjoy. 
> 
> Also, tell me your thoughts on endgame in the comments below. I am still shook.

"Perhaps one day we will meet again as characters in another story, maybe we'll share a lifetime then."  
Pavana

“This plan of yours is going to work right?” Tony said as his foot hesitated to step into the approaching vortex. 

“I don’t know, Mr. Stark, but I know we have to try.” 

Tony stepped through the vortex and unlike the previous time when he was thrown about like a tennis shoe in a tumble dryer, this time he fell furiously fast as if skydiving through time into an entirely new environment. 

Huh. 

After a moment of disorientation, he realized he actually already knew where he was. 

His father’s work shop. 

This had been his favorite place in the world growing up. The amount of times his father had found him tinkering with things he definitely shouldn’t have been was too high to count. 

Tony went to step forward and explore the space, but Kronos put his hand on his chest stopping him. 

Tony furrowed his brows and had been about to ask why the hell he thought it was okay to put his blue hand on him when something caught his eye, or rather, someone.

It was him. 

Only smaller. 

Much smaller.

He couldn’t have been more than 6 years old at the time.

His skinny younger self was sitting cross legged under a desk tweaking the engine of a small robot he had designed. Tony remembered the droid well. He had stripped countless remote-control cars and computers for pieces and circuit panels to design it. 

A loud bang from the door of the lab startled the young engineer and he grasped the droid to himself like it was a teddy bear and not a pile of scrap metal. 

Tony’s heart almost stopped. 

It had been so long since he had seen his father like this. Young and short tempered, the captain of a booming company and a brilliant engineer in his own right.

“I don’t care what the air force wants, I told you that if I can’t talk to Peggy Carter directly, then you are not getting so much as a calculator from Stark industries. Yes! You can tell the general I said that. You can also tell him I told him to FUCK OFF.” Howard Stark threw the cell phone he was holding across the room shattering it against the wall. 

Little Tony flinched at the cracking sound of the phone and huddled even deeper under his father’s workbench. The boy had inadvertently knocked the side of the desk and all of the equipment on top rattled. A pencil rolled off the desk and clattered to the floor. 

Howard’s eyes tracked the movement. He squeezed his eyes shut and drug his hands through his already graying hair before circling around the desk slowly.

Howard sat at the desk and started working while ignoring the small child at his feet. The only way anyone observing the scene would have known that he knew the small child was under him was the small smirk pulling up the corners of his mouth. After working for a few long minutes, Howard reached into the canister that was always full of sweets on his desk and pulled out a piece of candy. He ate one himself and hummed happily about how delicious it was, then he took another piece and very intentionally dropped it under the desk. 

From this angle, Tony couldn’t see all of his younger self behind his father. All he saw was a tiny hand reach out and snatch the candy before scurrying back into the recesses of his hiding place. He heard the sound of the rapper unraveling and a moment later the soft chuckle of his father. 

His father made a dramatic show of getting down off his seat and looking for the candy until his hands found Tony and immediately started tickling the delighted boy. Tony’s laugh filled the whole workshop until both Stark’s ended up out of breath underneath the desk with wide smiles on their faces. 

“What do we have here?” Howard asked reaching over Tony to pull out the little droid for further inspection. 

“Oh, it’s nothing.” Tony made a grab for it, but Howard pulled it just out of reach. Tony’s cheeks turned bright red. 

“This isn’t nothing. This is awesome!” Howard exclaimed. He had set the droid down and it started to roll and picked up the pieces of the shattered phone. 

“I wanted something to help me clean my room.” Tony explained shyly. 

“I reckon you have done it. What’s its name?” There was a small pause. 

Tony could hear the name on the boy’s lips before he had formed them.

“Jarvis.” Tony said softly. Howard’s eyes immediately misted. His lifelong friend and butler had died the previous year from cancer. No matter what treatments they had tried, the disease claimed him. Too soon, as it always is. 

Jarvis had been family to the Stark’s. Tony had thought of him like a grandfather. He had started building the droid at his funeral and had been hoping to have him finished in time for Christmas. He had been planning on giving it to his father. 

“That is a good name.” Howard said with a sad smile. “He would have loved it.”

“He’s not finished yet. I can’t get the engine to stop giving out with the big things.” Tony said while biting his lip and picking up the droid to inspect its motor. 

“Can I help?” Howard asked, grabbing the tiny screwdriver and switching the bot off.

The two Starks tinkered uninterrupted for a few minutes until they had overhauled the engine’s power source. They had been about to test out the new model when a sweet feminine voice flowed over the sound system. 

“Boys, dinner!” Tony’s mom always insisted they eat together no matter how busy she was running the philanthropic portion of Stark industries or how involved Howard was in designing something. That is until a few years after this when they both got more involved with SHIELD and their priorities shifted from saving their family to saving the world. 

Tony didn’t resent their choices. He understood, especially now, how important it was to be a part of something bigger than themselves. He did regret, however, how he had reacted to their withdraw. In a few more years, this happy creative kid who worshipped the ground his father walked on, would be a bitter isolated teen acting out for attention and flunking tests on purpose just to spite him. 

Tony was brought back to the past, by his father’s voice calling out. 

“Five more minutes!” Tony and Howard giggled happily as the bot began to move again. 

He wasn’t sure how much time passed like this, but it was definitely longer than five minutes. 

He heard the familiar clack of her high heels before he saw his mother carrying a large pizza box down the stairs with a soda and a bottle of wine balanced precariously on top. She came around the back of the desk and the smile on her face at finding her boys playing could only be described as radiant. 

Little tony was working on the circuit again and didn’t notice how Howard looked up at his wife. She quirked her eyebrow at him and he looked at her like she was holding the moon and stars in her hands. 

It was a revelation. Tony hadn’t realized- or maybe he just hadn’t remembered- how much love had been in his home. He only remembered the fallout; he only remembered the pain. 

He watched in awe as his mom kicked off her heels, let down her hair out of it’s neat chignon, and sat directly down onto to dirty workshop floor in her pristine white suit. 

“Dinner is served.” She said proudly while grabbing a mug off Howards desk and pouring him a mug of wine. 

“Five...more…minutes...” Younger Tony whispered distractedly as he continued to tinker. 

“I told you, you were a bad influence.” She said smiling as she took a sip of wine.

Howard raised his hands in defense, but then shrugged and grabbed her by the nape and placed a giant smacking kiss against her lips. 

His movement had bumped Tony who finally looked up and was greeted by the sight of his parents kissing. 

“EW! Gross!!” Tony faked gagging and then wormed his way between his parents who immediately started laughing and tickling him. 

His moms’ suit was splashed with wine, his dads’ trousers were stained with pizza grease, and Tony’s own hair was completely disheveled from their tickling hands, but Tony had never seen a more beautiful family. 

He watched from the shadows as the family laughed and ate until little Tony had finally fallen asleep on his father’s shoulder, with Jarvis clutched in his arms. Howard scooped his sleeping body up and Maria followed with the remnants of their picnic. The perfect family disappeared up the stairs from the lab leaving the workshop eerily still and silent. 

Tony blinked the tears out of his eyes and looked over at Kronos. 

“Why did you bring me here?” Tony whispered. Kronos nodded his head toward the worktop. 

Tony approached warily until he saw the files spread all across the desk. 

His father had found the tesseract. He was working on creating a research team called Project Pegasus. 

“I don’t understand.” Tony said while he sifted through the files. He had of course known how intertwined his father’s work had been with the formation of SHIELD, but he had had no idea just how crucial his father’s work had been. Howard’s legacy was so much more than just helping to create Captain America and building his shield. 

Tony turned and saw the safe on the edge of the room and something about its cool unassuming planes had Tony’s feet moving towards it. 

He found the lock and his hands moved to input the combination as if on auto pilot. He wouldn’t have known it if he hadn’t just watched the scene play out in front of him. 

His birthday.

Tony’s hand shook as he felt the lock give way. He heard the hum of power a moment before the blue hue of the tesseract shone into the dark workshop. 

Holy shit. 

His father had had an infinity stone in his workshop years before Tony had ever even heard the word. 

How had he never known this? 

“Destiny. Mr. Stark. Yours was tied to Thanos’ from the very beginning. The foundations of Iron man were literally designed in the shadow of an infinity stone. You didn’t invite the chaos. You were the universe’s solution for it.”

Tony pulled out the tiny device he and Bruce had designed to harness the large amount of energy produced by the infinity stones which was currently filled with quantum energy. Having no preface for how this would work he opened the canister and watched in awe as the quantum energy swallowed the tesseract and the combined elements glowed brighter and brighter. Eventually he and Kronos had to look away from the light for risk of blinding themselves. A moment after it had started the light dimmed again and to Tony’s amazement the energy had returned to the canister as if commanded and glowed with the same blue hue as the tesseract beside it. 

“Did it work?” Tony asked curiously while reaching out to grab the re-closed canister. 

“I believe it did.” Kronos nodded solemnly. “We are one step closer to undoing what Thanos did.”

Kronos disappeared with the canister and Tony slammed the safe shut closing the tesseract back in its quiet resting place where it could still fulfill its destiny. He couldn’t believe they had a shot at pulling this off. They had found the loop hole, they were stealing the stones out of time without disrupting their own timelines. 

Howard had had no idea what type of power he had locked behind a few sheets of metal in his workshop, Tony wasn’t sure he even understood. 

A split-second later, footsteps echoed down the stairs of the lab. Tony turned to flee but froze as he heard the click of a gun being cocked behind him. 

“Give me one good reason not to blow your brains out right here.” Howard demanded. 

Tony squeezed his eyes shut as his mind reeled. He was terrified that his father was about to shoot him, but he was even more terrified that his father would recognize him. Tony wanted to throw his arms around him in a hug. He wanted his father to see what he had done. To see who he had become. To finally see the legacy that the Stark name would have. 

Could he do this? 

Did he dare reveal himself?

He knew it was a bad idea. Any alterations in his past could irrevocably change his future. Everything could fall apart…and yet…

“Dad?” Tony’s voice cracked as if he was a teenager again and not a fully-grown man, probably years older than his father was at this time. He felt the barrel of the gun fall away from his neck and turned around slowly with his arms up. Praying his father wouldn’t shoot the lunatic rooting around his lab claiming to be his son, who was currently 6 years old and sleeping upstairs. 

Howard still had the gun aimed at Tony but the moment they locked eyes his hand fell. 

“Tony?” Howard said searching his eyes as tears threatened to spill over. 

“It’s me, dad.” Tony said as if it could help convince his father of this impossible reality with three words. 

Apparently, he could, because before he had taken his next breath, his father’s arms were wrapped tightly around him, and the gun had clattered to the floor. 

Tony squeezed his father back so tightly he couldn’t breathe. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need oxygen right now. 

He had his dad. 

“I’m sorry.” Tony whispered as his father calmly rubbed his hands over his head. “I’m so sorry.”

“Tony, shhhh, stop. You have nothing to apologize for. Please, stop.” Howard assured him. 

Tony wanted to tell him everything. He wanted to tell him about Iron Man and Pepper. He wanted to apologize for not saying goodbye to him before he left that last time, he wanted to tell him how much of an idiot he had been. He wanted to tell him about the Avengers and about Peter Parker. He wanted to tell him how much he wanted his father to be proud of him. 

It didn’t matter. All of the success he had achieved, at the end of the day, Tony still felt like the tiny brilliant little boy sitting under his father’s workbench, desperate to make something he would be proud of. 

Tears spilled over his eyes and he took big gasps of air, but still none of the words he had wanted to say came out. They couldn’t. Tony knew if he said anything, it could irrevocably alter his own future. 

He couldn’t risk it. He had to be here. They had to clone the stones. They had to beat Thanos. 

It was an excruciating type of helplessness. He technically possessed the ability to change the legacy of his relationship with his father, but he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. 

Howard grabbed his face and forced Tony to look at him. 

“Tony. Look at me.” Tony squeezed his eyes shut and then forced himself to meet his father’s eyes. 

“I love you.” His father said softly. It turned out, that was all he needed to hear. 

Tony grabbed a fistful of his father’s shirt and held him even closer. 

“I love you, dad.”

“Howard! What’s taking so long, I have the board on the phone.” Maria yelled from the top of the stairs. 

The sound of his mother’s voice startled both of the men and they separated suddenly. 

“I have to go.” Tony said. “She can’t know I’m here.” 

With one final hug, Tony turned and ran toward the spot where he had arrived. 

“Tony!” His father’s voice stopped him in his tracks even as he felt the pull of the time vortex opening behind him. “I’m proud of you, son.” 

Tony was swallowed by the vortex before he could respond, but the impact of his father’s words hit him like a physical blow. 

He had been waiting to hear those words for his entire life. 

*****

When Tony opened his eyes, he was in Queens standing on a street corner in front of a coffee shop. 

Not just any coffee shop, it was May’s. 

It was also the only building on the haunted street with its lights on. 

He had been dreading this moment but knew it had to be done. 

He needed to apologize to May. 

He never should have let Peter come with him to Germany. 

He never should have given him the damn suit. 

He knew logically that Peter would have been dusted no matter where he had been, but at least he could have been with May. 

Or Michelle. 

God, he prayed she was okay. 

Tony took a deep steadying breath and turned toward the door. 

A tall woman in a white dress was backing out of the door at the exact time he went to open it. He wasn’t fast enough to move out of the way, and she ran right into him. 

“Oh, sorry. I wasn-“ Her light eyes sparkled for a split second before they squinted in appraisal. 

“Pep.” Tony said her name on an exhale before grabbing her into a tight hug. As she always did when he displayed such sudden emotion, she returned the hug immediately offering herself as an anchor to the storm that was so often raging in Tony. 

Tony felt his heart rate decrease immediately. He was home. 

He didn’t know what the hell Pepper was doing here, and he didn’t care. He had been expecting to have one of the hardest conversations of his life after being emotionally wrecked by his trip to the past, instead he had the love of his life and his best friend in his arms again.

“What’s wrong?” She asked firmly. Tony almost laughed. Pepper could read him like a book. She had been able to since the very first time they met. 

He remembered that day clearly. Happy had been holding interviews for assistants for weeks and had finally narrowed it down to three but insisted Tony meet them and make the final decision. 

He had spent the entire night before in the lab after making a token appearance at a charity ball to keep up the charade of the playboy billionaire and was beyond exhausted. He had barely been able to keep his eyes open and had been chugging his fourth expresso, when he entered the room and was stopped dead in his tracks by the sight of Pepper Potts. 

He didn’t really understand it. He had never had a type and he certainly never showed any proclivity toward redheads- always being an equal opportunist when it came to the beauty of the opposite sex.

One look at the young Pepper Potts with her serious but pretty pony tail and splattering of freckles across her nose and suddenly he had only one type. 

Her. 

It took the span of a single question for Tony to know that she was the right candidate for the job. While the other women flirted and tried to say exactly what he wanted to hear Pepper did not. In fact, she had done the exact opposite. 

“What is it you think you can offer me, Ms. Potts?” He had asked cockily expecting her to flounder and flatter him like the others had but hoping secretly she would be different. 

She had appraised him thoughtfully for a few long moments. That reaction alone had made him slightly uneasy. He didn’t sit still often and if he did it was never in the light of day across from another human, nor without a stiff drink in his hand. He couldn’t hide from Pepper Potts. He couldn’t distract her by taking a drink or throwing himself at the nearest bimbo to distract from how lonely he was. 

“You need sleep, Mr. Stark. While no one can deny you are brilliant, you seem to lack the basic capability of taking care of yourself. You need to drink something other than top shelf liquor, eat something that doesn’t come out of a drive thru, and by the looks of it, you could use a shower too.”

Damn, that had been blunt. 

Nobody had talked to him like that in years. 

Why was he suddenly turned on?

“Anything else?” Tony said with crossed arms and a poor attitude. Everything she was saying was absolutely true, but he didn’t want to hear it, especially not from somebody as beautiful as her.

“Yes. Your designs and inventions are undoubtedly the most cutting edge and incredible in the world. You make the next closest competition look antiquated and pitiful, but your business is poorly managed. Your making billions yes, but your hemorrhaging cash by the millions because your business structure is outdated and inefficient. You need someone to help you make the day to day decisions that you keep punting off to the board. You need someone who can stand in the way of all their battling agendas. You need someone to heal the nightmare that is your public perception and make sure a portion of the billions of dollars you will never use is going to charities that will actually make a difference not just hold high end charity functions. You need help Mr. Stark and I intend to be it.” 

Tony hadn’t even been able to blink for fear of missing a single second of her impassioned speech. She was like a fiery tempered angel, all heart but willing to fight him to the floor.

Now there was a thought. 

He wasn’t sure how he knew it, but even in those first minutes he had known his heart would forever belong to Ms. Pepper Potts. 

After a socially unacceptable amount of time had passed with the two individuals just staring at each other. Tony finally forced himself to swallow the lump in his throat. 

“Since you seem to know me so well, tell me Ms. Potts, did you get the job?” Tony asked curiously. 

“I had the job the moment I walked into this room, Mr. Stark. Your other candidates were incompetent and unprofessional. I’m all you’ve got.” Pepper said confidently. 

T the two individuals slipped back into the depths of each other’s eyes, letting this strange new current spark between them. 

“Welcome to Stark Industries, Ms. Potts.” Tony said with a smirk and extended his hand. 

Tony could still feel the way her hand touching his had sent an electric charge through his body. She had always affected him, even during the years he tried so hard to deny it and push her away. 

She was affecting him even now. 

Present Tony didn’t think. He just did exactly what felt right. He buried his hands in her silky-soft hair and kissed her with all of the love and passion in his body.

He was damn near an old man at this point, but she made him feel like a teenager again. 

It wasn’t until both of their lungs screamed for relief that they finally separated. 

“I missed you.” Tony said on an exhale while pressing his forehead against hers. 

“What are you doing here?” Pepper asked. Never one to waste time with pleasantries or fluff. 

“I came to apologize.” Tony said honestly, there was no use trying to lie. Pepper would see right through it anyway. “I lost him.”

He shook his head. He had apologized repeatedly after arriving back on earth in the pieced together space ship that barely survived entering the atmosphere. He had apologized to everyone and then settled into a cloud of bitterness and resentment so thick he almost hadn’t survived it. Pepper pulled him out of it as she always did. 

“It’s not your fault, tony.” She whispered and placed a hand on his cheek. 

“It is.” Tony said resolutely. He rarely used such a serious tone with Pepper always preferring to keep her exasperated or giggling, but this wasn’t something he wanted her to reason away for him. 

Pepper sighed heavily and then took his hand in her own. 

“She’s inside.” Was all she said before leading him into the coffee shop with her steadying hand. 

*****

Tony was initially shocked by how much he felt at home in the eclectic coffee shop, but then remembered that that had been a super power of the Parker’s. To them, everyone was family and that energy permeated every inch of the warm shop.

He had seen pictures of course, after all, he had been a silent partner in the venture. May wasn’t supposed to ever know who the investor was, but he suspected she had figured it out. She had also made the business an overnight success and bought him out only months after the investment. 

Determination. 

A trait he was sure Peter had gotten in equal parts from his genius parents and hardworking aunt and uncle. 

Too bad that determination had gotten him killed. 

God, what he wouldn’t do to trade places with the kid. 

Tony’s steps faltered subtly, and Pepper squeezed his hand without looking back at him. She could sense his unease, he knew, but he still had a hard time believing there was anyone who knew him that well. He didn’t deserve her, but he was far too selfish to let her go. 

“Tony?” Happy Hogan was sitting at a coffee table with spreadsheets cluttering every inch of its surface. “What are you doing here?” 

What was he doing here? What was Happy doing here? Also, why was Happy sitting so close to May? What the hell was going on?

May looked up at the sound of Happy’s words and made eye contact with Tony. There was no blame in the look. No hidden agenda or accusation, but it cut Tony to the core anyway. He knew it was scientifically impossible, but he swore Peter had inherited May’s eyes. The similarities in the deep brown colors sent a familiar pang of regret through his system. 

“I came to speak to May, imagine my surprise when I found out there was a party tonight. My invite must have gotten lost in the mail.” Tony couldn’t help but keep the sarcastic bite in his voice. He knew he used his sarcasm as a defense mechanism, but he couldn’t figure out why it bothered him to see all of them together without him. 

Pepper’s eyes narrowed at his tone. Happy rolled his eyes and May’s hands went to her hips defensively. 

“This isn’t a party Tony. It’s a strategic meeting.” May’s voice rung out clear and firm. She obviously hadn’t enjoyed his tone either. “We are trying to make sure this community doesn’t collapse. Crime rates are at an all time high. The food and resources provided by the government are not making it to those in need. Families are crumbling. Schools have shut down and the mayor isn’t doing anything about it!” May’s impassioned words hung in the air for a few moments as silence filled the space. Tony took a second look at the papers strewn across the desk and saw what he had missed the first time. They were single handedly organizing the infrastructure of the Queen’s community and beyond. Food banks, work opportunities, safe houses, neighborhood watches, police reports, and the details of a hundred other initiatives stared up at him. 

“Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve helped.” Tony said quietly, all of the sarcasm in his voice vanishing.

“Tony, you’re trying to bring everyone back, that is way more important. We are just trying to make sure there’s still a world worth living in when they arrive.” Happy added while looking at May. There was a tenderness in his eyes that Tony had never seen before. He made a mental note to ask Happy about that later. 

“Thank you. If you need anythi-“ Tony started to say. 

“Oh, you’ve given enough.” Pepper interrupted him. “This entire goodwill operation is funded by Stark Industries.” May and Happy had the decency to look a little sheepish, but Pepper’s eyes just twinkled. She loved pulling one over on him, especially because she knew that if he cared about his money at all he would have easily realized he was hemorrhaging cash. 

“Well, good. I’m glad I could help….I guess.” Tony smiled at Pepper and spent a heartbeat just getting lost in her eyes. 

Then he cleared his throat. 

“May, I was hoping to speak to you.” He said after a beat. 

“Ok.” May pushed back from the table and circled around to meet him.

Pepper signaled Happy behind May’s back and the two made a silent yet conspicuous exit into the kitchen. 

God, he loved that woman. 

“So, what could be so important that it pulled you out of Wakanda and into my coffee shop.” May said in her no-nonsense way.

“I-“ Now that he was here, the thousands of elaborate apologies he had rehearsed on those god forsaken days in space after the snap eluded him. 

“I’m so sorry, I couldn’t save him.” Tears filled May’s eyes immediately and the tough outer armor she always wore seemed to crumble to the floor around him. Tony could suddenly see how bloodshot her eyes where and how deep the shadows underneath ran.

“Its no-.“

“It is my fault. I recruited him. I created the Stark internship. I didn’t tell you he was Spider-man when you had every right to know. I encouraged him to train with the Avengers. This is my fault. Peter died because of me and there is no apology big enough to encompass how badly I wish it had been me instead.” By the time he had finished, tears were streaming down May’s cheeks. 

“Oh, Tony.” She dropped her head and Tony saw the first few tears splatter to the wood floor at her feet before her broken voice filtered out. “I would’ve lost him either way, but you gave him purpose. You helped focus all that kinetic energy on something good. Your suit saved his life hundreds of times. After Ben…he was so lost, but you gave him somebody to look up to. You became like a fath-“ A sob escaped Tony’s mouth halting her sentence, but both of them knew what she had said.

Tony had to have been the worst father figure ever, and yet, Peter would’ve done absolutely anything for him. Unconditional loyalty, that is what Peter had given him. It’s how he ended up on Titan fighting one of the most powerful beings in the universe. It’s how he ended up crying out to Tony in anguish as his body frantically tried to regenerate as it was torn cell from cell. 

A familiar flashback hit Tony in the chest like a sledgehammer. 

‘Mr. stark? I don’t feel so good…I don’t…I don’t know what’s happening…save me…save me….I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go, sir, please.…I don’t want to go…I don’t want to go…..I’m sorry.’ 

The words that had haunted his every waking moment echoed through his brain for the millionth time. He wondered if May could see them in his eyes. May turned abruptly and went behind the bar and pulled a framed picture off the wall. There were many pictures there of people in the community, newspaper clippings of big events in the neighborhood, even some of Spider-Man’s biggest saves. 

May held out the framed picture and Tony felt it in his bones before he saw it. He knew which picture it was. Despite the kid’s many requests, it was one of two pictures they had ever taken together. Tony flipped it over to see the two of them holding the fraudulent Stark Industries Internship award letter. Happy had forged it on google docs that morning and printed it on regular copy paper. The frame had been to add ‘credibility’ even though they had ended up holding it upside down and putting bunny ears behind each other’s heads anyway. They had spent the whole day in the lab testing new tech and listening to an eclectic mix of Tony’s 70’s rock collection and Peter’s favorite 90’s R&B. It was one of Tony’s favorite memories with the kid.

“He loved this photo so much. It was the only thing he ever asked me to hang up on the wall.” May explained softly. A tear fell from Tony’s eye and landed on the glass. 

“He loved you, Tony, and despite what you want to believe, he would have ended up there anyway.” She sighed heavily and a sad smile lifted her lips before she continued. “Us parkers tend to be a little stubborn like that.” Tony wrapped her in a tight hug before he had even consciously decided to do so. He thought he had come to apologize, and it turned out he had come for confirmation that he meant as much to Peter as the kid had to him. He had come for a reminder of why he had to do this. 

“Please just tell me you found a way to bring him back.” May’s voice shook as she asked the question. For the first time since the vanishing, Tony could answer that question with 100% certainty. 

“I’m going to bring him back.” 

And more than any other promises he had made in his life, this was the one he was going to keep. 

The sweetness of the moment was broken when they heard the sound of Happy blowing his nose loudly behind the kitchen door. The illusion of their privacy was shattered but both Tony and May started chuckling and that was a gift neither one had even known they needed. 

Pepper and Happy came back into the room and without even making the decision to move. Tony bear hugged Happy stopping him in his tracks. For a guy who couldn’t even tolerate being handed things, his sudden and thorough display of emotion shocked himself as much as everyone else in the room. 

“Take care of them.” Tony whispered into Happy’s ear low enough so that May and Pepper couldn’t hear. Four little words imbued with all of the hopes and wishes Tony had, but would never get to live out. 

Tony was many things, but he wasn’t stupid. There was no way they were all coming out of a fight with Thanos alive. There would be casualties and he would most likely be one of them. 

Happy’s arms squeezed Tony even tighter and Tony knew that his best friend and bodyguard, his right-hand man for all these years, knew that this was it. There would be no dramatic fourth quarter twist. There would be no spectacular resurrection. They had come to the end of their messy and imperfect story, but it was a good one. It was the story that had made a gregarious bodyguard and a mercurial billionaire brothers. It was the only reason he could leave them behind, knowing they were in such good hands. Happy would take care of everyone he loved, because he loved them all too, even the kid.

“Always.” Happy whispered back. 

*****

“This is it, isn’t it.” Pepper said as they both settled into the back of the SUV that had been waiting to take her home. 

Happy hadn’t followed them out, undoubtedly sensing that they needed to speak in private. 

Even after a life time of making inappropriate jokes to ease tense situations and avoidance of difficult conversations, Tony couldn’t muster one thing to say. Except the truth. 

“I think it is.” Pepper nodded and looked out the window, but she couldn’t hide the tear that rolled down her cheek. Tony reached out and tenderly brushed it away.

Tony hadn’t known what reaction to expect from Pepper, but the next words out of her mouth were not it. 

“Marry me.” She said turning back to face him and grabbing both his hands in her own. “Tonight. Right now.” She added. 

Tony searched her eyes and saw that she was entirely serious. He ached because all he had ever wanted was to give her the dream life with the dream wedding and now, he couldn’t give her either. 

He wouldn’t deny her this. 

“Yes.” Was all he said before she lunged.

The ever sophisticated, ever in control Pepper Potts kissed Tony Stark with so much passion and wild disregard for propriety that his head spun. 

Tony buried one hand in her hair and then wrapped the other around her waist pulling her across the smooth leather seat until she was pressed up against him. His hands slid down and found the bottom of her form fitting white pencil dress before his hands dove under the fabric pulling the skirt up as his palms sought every inch of her skin. 

Pepper moaned softly and then shocked Tony again by throwing one newly freed leg over his own and straddling his lap. Before Tony could even think about what she was doing, she was grinding down on him and sending all kinds of delicious sensations to a particularly excited part of his anatomy. 

He was in heaven. He had missed her body so much. The way she moved. The way she talked. The way she smelled. Hell, he had just missed her. His movements paused when he remembered that this would probably be it and he swallowed. The last time he saw Pepper before he, a mortal man, went to face down a titan with the power of all six infinity stones. 

“Pepper, wait.” He whispered as she kissed a line of kisses down his throat. She didn’t seem inclined to listen to him, especially if the motions of her hips were any indication, so Tony forced himself to grab hold of his hips and still their enticing movements. 

“What is it? What’s wrong Tony?” Pepper looked at him with love blown eyes and he felt his heart crack in two. She looked so young like this. There was a sparkle in her eye, a flush to her cheeks, and a messy undone quality to what was left of her artful chignon that damn near broke Tony’s heart. He reached a hand up and gently put a piece of escaped hair behind her eye. She leaned into his hand and closed her eyes. 

“Look at me, Pepper.” He said softly, the words were almost lost under the sound of both of their still accelerated breathing. Her eyes blinked open and what had been a sparkle was now undoubtedly the shine of soon to fall tears. 

“I love you more than anything in this world.” The first of many tears fell from her eye but Tony caught it with his thumb and whisked it away. He hated to make her cry, but he needed her to know. 

“I wish so badly that I was just a man, not a billionaire, not a hero, but just a man whose only responsibility was to love you the way you deserve for as many years as we both live. I wish I could have hung up the suit and spent those nights cuddled up with you in our home, I wish that we had had time to start that family we whispered about on that trip to Aruba. I wish I would have held your hand more and taken the time to bring you daisies at your office. But I didn’t, I chose a different path because loving you...” He stopped to swallow the lump in his throat so he could force the words out of his bleeding soul. “Being loved by you Pepper, changed everything. You made me everything I am today simply by believing that I could be more than some spoiled billionaire with a bad attitude and reckless tendencies. Iron Man, the Avengers, none of it would have been possible without you.”

Tony wiped a few more tears that had fallen down her soft cheeks before finishing. “So, I guess what I am trying to say is, thank you. Thank you for loving this flawed man in front of you. Even though I don’t know if I’m coming back, I’m leaving every piece of my heart here with you.” He leaned forward and placed the softest of kisses on her lips. 

“I am so proud of you.” Pepper said gripping his head with both hands. “I want to yell and scratch you and tie you down and force you to stay, but I know I can’t.” She placed a small kiss on his forehead. “You are something more than just my Tony now, you have a team and a legend attached to your name. I love you, always. There is and will never be anyone but Pepper and Tony.” Tony’s eyes squeezed shut and a few more tears fell from his own eyes. Pepper kissed them away. 

Tony wasn’t sure the two of them had ever laid out their emotions so plainly. They had known of coarse what they felt for each other, but he realized there was power in speaking the words out loud, without sarcasm or distraction, allowing only space for sincerity and vulnerability. He had never felt this close to anyone in his entire life and with that thought the next words tumbled out of his mouth. 

“Take my name.” He had never even thought to ask. Pepper was so self-composed, so confident and independent he always assumed she wouldn’t want it. The only reason he asked now was because he knew she was strong enough and powerful enough to take his name but not be swallowed by it. She was Pepper. There would be no overshadowing her, but since he was leaving almost everything to her, it made since that the owner and CEO of Stark industries bore the name. It was caveman-ish and possessive of him, but even after he was gone, he wanted everyone to look at her and see his hold on her. He wanted his name to protect her and he wanted his name to comfort her, but mostly he was just a man who had given all of himself to a woman and he wanted the world to know it. Hell, he would change his last name to Potts if she didn’t change hers. He didn’t care, he just needed them to be linked for reasons he couldn’t even fully articulate. 

“I thought you’d never ask.” Was Pepper’s only response before she devoured him with those soft pink lips. 

Anthony Edward Stark and Virginia Potts were married under the twinkling lights of the Parker’s rooftop garden by an emotional Happy Hogan. Happy had gotten ordained online a few years earlier, just in case the opportunity ever presented itself. May Parker witnessed the tear-filled event and signed the paperwork that confirmed that Tony loved Pepper more than anything and would love her even beyond when death should separate them. 

The thick sent of flowers hung in the warm spring air and the soft notes of Billy Holiday’s ‘I’ll Be Seeing You” rang out from Happy’s phone while the couple danced their first and last dance.

Tony made love to Pepper in the back seat of the SUV, but it was neither hurried nor cheapened by the location. It was perfect. A joining of two bodies that knew every inch of the other. A mingling of two souls who were imperfect for each other but chose to love one another despite that fact. 

With a final soft kiss placed on his bride’s forehead, Tony slipped out of the SUV and into the time vortex more filled with love and peace than he ever had been. 

Whatever the future brought; he could face it. 

His body was vulnerable yes, but his heart was tucked safely away in the arms of Pepper Stark.

*****

“Where to next?” Tony asked resolutely. Whatever Kronos’ intention on taking him on this journey, Tony felt as though it had worked. He wasn’t diving head first into a battle he wasn’t prepared for and risking his own life to escape the torment of guilt. 

He was of sound mind. He was strengthened by the love and acceptance of his father and his wife. 

He still couldn’t believe he was actually married. 

If you had told his younger self that he would willingly stand in front of a minister and pledge his undying love to a single woman while giving her everything he had, he would’ve laughed. He had been so foolish and selfish. He hardly recognized the man he had been when he started out on this hero’s journey. 

“You have been to the past and the present, Mr. Stark. The wizard has asked that I show you one more thing before you go to battle the mad titan.”

Tony looked up expectantly and already felt the now familiar grumble of the approaching time vortex. 

“The future.” 

*****

Tony took a few calming breaths to quench down his body’s desire to throw up. Time traveling did strange things to his mind and body. 

When he opened his eyes, he was exactly where he had stood a few short hours earlier pledging his love to Pepper. 

“Hey, blue man group, I think there is a glitch with your vortex.” Tony said while turning around and looking for the mysterious eternal. Kronos was nowhere to be found, but a moment later Tony realized what was different. 

It wasn’t quiet anymore. 

Car horns, ambulance sirens, yelling sports fans, angry neighbors, and a million other sounds blended together to form the hum of an awakened city. Tony jogged toward the edge of the rooftop, but he knew what he would see before he got there. 

He knew this city. He had grown up here. He knew the twinkle of a million lights and the smells of a melting pot of cultures and people. New York City restored to her former glory, shown out in the distance like a beacon of hope as the tight knit community of Queens bustled below him. 

Tony’s breath stuttered. 

They did it. They won. 

He wasn’t sure how and he didn’t know if this was just a hallucination, but he suddenly believed in his soul. They could defeat Thanos. They would bring everyone back. 

A huge smile cracked Tony’s lips even as he remembered the potential cost. 

“No, no, no!” A tiny voice called out from inside the greenhouse followed by a crash of metal parts. Tony whirled around in shock. He thought he had been alone. He should go. He had no idea if the Parker’s still lived here or how far into the future he was. At second glance, many things had changed, the glass of the greenhouse looked slightly more time warn and the plants that inhabited the space were much larger and more robust than they had been. Time it seemed had only made this place more beautiful. 

And yet, there had been something about that little feminine voice that drew Tony in. 

His feet were moving before he had even made the conscious decision to stay. 

Tony peaked inside and saw light brunette hair moving around in a flurry of activity. The little girl was working frantically to repair a robot that appeared to have taken a hard tumble to the ground. 

Tony’s heart stopped.

He had known it the moment he laid eyes on her. This was Pepper’s daughter. The splattering of freckles across the nose, the lean body structure, the delicate nose. It was like Pepper herself had been shrunk down to a miniature size and had her hair dyed brown. Only this pepper’s hands were covered in engine grease and instead of a sophisticated suit she wore an oversized band t-shirt and a pair of well-worn overalls over a pair of thoroughly scuffed converse. 

That band t-shirt looked familiar. Tony shook his head. It couldn’t be. 

A beat of jealousy echoed through his mind, but he forced himself to stop it. Pepper had always wanted a family. He hadn’t been able to give it to her, but he was glad she found it with-

The little girl looked up toward the skyline and revealed the deep brown hue of her intelligent eyes. They weren’t blue like Pepper’s; they were brown like his. Those were Stark eyes, he was sure of it. 

Could it be?

A huge smile spread across the little girls face and she hopped to her feet rushing out the doors of the greenhouse toward the ledge of the rooftop. Tony almost yelled out ‘be careful’ but then remembered he had no business being here and no explanation for why he had arrived. 

Much to Tony’s complete terror the little girl hopped up on the ledge and stood with her hands on her hips looking out over the horizon. 

She was going to give him a heart attack. What was she waiting for? Why did she have to be on the ledge? 

His silent question was answered a moment later when a red and blue blur swung by whisking the little girl into the air faster than Tony could blink. His heart stopped for a moment and then he heard peels of happy laughter as the masked hero swung her around the block. 

It was a few more minutes before the pair settled back down onto the rooftop. The little girl swayed slightly from dizziness and the masked hero knelt down in front of her steadying her shoulders. 

Undeterred by her body’s questionable equilibrium. The little girl reached up and put her hands on the metal of the face mask, which peeled away immediately earning him a single joyful exclamation. 

“Let’s do it again, Uncle Peter! Please. Please. Please!”

Tony’s heart stopped again.

The kid. He had saved the Kid. Although, on second glance, he didn’t look so much like a kid anymore. 

“No absolutely not, your mom would kill me Mo. You know she hates when I take you up.”

Tony swore his heart stopped beating. Mo. Her name was Mo.

“Aww come on!” The little rebel wined good naturedly. “She doesn’t have to know!”

“Who doesn’t have to know what?” Both Peter and Mo’s head whipped toward the door of the rooftop as Pepper emerged in a pristine pale blue suit and stilettos. 

“Nothing.” Peter and Mo said at the exact same time then bust out in a fit of giggles. 

“Mmmhmmm. I’ve heard that before. Alright, Peter I wrote down all the emergency numbers, Happy is nearby, and I ordered dinner it should be here in a few minutes. If you need any-“

“Pepper, relax, it’s not like this is the first time MJ and I have babysat.” Mo crossed her arms and harrumphed. Peter looked down with a smirk and then corrected himself. “Excuse me, It’s not the first time we’ve hung out with Morgan.” The little girl instantly smiled and then launched herself at the red and blue vigilante without warning. Peter caught her with ease and swung her around so that she was on his back. The interaction was so smooth it was almost as if they had rehearsed it. 

Tony’s heart ached. 

Pepper marched over and the tiny greasy little girl leapt into her arms and wrapped her legs around her mom. Mo’s tiny little hands immediately left marks on her mom’s jacket, but Pepper couldn’t have cared less. 

“Be good. I’ll be back tomorrow.” Pepper said before kissing the top of her head. 

“I will.” Morgan said earnestly all the previous sass forgotten now that the reality of her mom leaving settled in. The little girl sniffled, and Pepper rocked her back and forth for a few more moments before the rumble of a motorcycle engine had Mo’s head popping up. 

“Auntie!” Morgan leapt from her mom’s arms and bee lined to the staircase. 

“And just like that, I’m forgotten.” Pepper said with a smile while shaking her head and wiping a tear away. 

“Aww don’t feel bad Mrs. Stark, even I can’t compare to Auntie Michelle.” Peter said while wistfully looking over the edge of the building at Michelle Jones. 

Tony smiled to himself. Peter looked at MJ the exact way he had in high school all star-struck and love drunk. He knew the feeling. He was looking at Pepper the same way right now. 

“Are you ever going to call me Pepper?” His wife asked in a tone that seemed to imply she already knew the answer. 

Peter’s only reply was to shake his head softly. 

“Did you see the new mural on 31st street?” Pepper asked wistfully while watching little Morgan tackle her ‘auntie’ in the alleyway down below.

“I miss him.” Was Peter’s only reply. Tony’s heart cracked. There it was. The confirmation that in whatever future this was, he wouldn’t get to witness it first-hand. That tiny little miracle who was currently sitting astride a motorcycle- he had some issues with that particular fact- would never know him.

“Me too.” Pepper said softly before visibly shaking her head and forcing a smile to her lips. “I’ve got to go. If I don’t whip the board of trustees into shape, there will be a hostile takeover over all this Oscorp business. Thank you again, Peter.” 

“You don’t have to thank me, Pepper. She’s family. You both are.” Pepper sighed in relief and hugged Peter briefly before turning to exit the rooftop while failing to hide the single tear that fell from her eye. 

Michelle and Morgan must have gone inside because their joint laughter no longer wafted up the alley way and spilled over the rooftop. Tony already missed the sound.

“You can come out now.” Peter said while staring out toward the sun setting over the city. 

It took Tony a few seconds to realize that he had been talking to him. Damn Spidey-sense. 

“How long did you know I was here?” Tony asked semi-amazed. 

“From about three blocks away.” Peter smirked and then closed the distance between them wrapping Tony is the fiercest hug. 

“Woah, easy there spiderling. You’re going to crush me.” Tony wheezed out. Peter’s grip immediately loosened, and he pulled back sheepishly. 

“Sorry, I forget my own strength sometimes.” Peter admitted with a slightly furrowed brow. 

“No kidding. Let me look at you.” Tony appraised the man in front of him and compared him to the skinny teenager he had known. 

Peter was taller now and built with lean muscles in a way that almost invited confrontation. There were a few more lines around his eyes and his hair had grown out but it still curled in it’s unruly way. In many ways, he looked exactly like Tony remembered him, but in another sense, he was transformed all together. His now broad shoulders seemed to carry the weight of the world with ease, his eyes were clear and determined, and his posture reminded him of Cap’s- all stubborn determination and limitless integrity. 

“You look old.” Tony said while playfully punching him in the chest. 

Peter shook his head. 

“You saw her, didn’t you?” Peter asked seriously immediately focusing their conversation on what mattered. 

Tony nodded. 

“Is she-“ Tony couldn’t even finish the question. He wanted her to be his so badly he feared that any answer to the contrary would actually kill him. 

“She’s yours.” Peter answered and Tony’s knees actually gave out under the wave of emotion that hit him. If Peter didn’t have such quick reflexes, he was sure he would have fallen to the ground. 

“I don’t-, how do I-, what did-,” Tony’s eyes connected with Peter’s and the compassion and pain that he saw there nearly broke his will to stay standing. “Will you tell me about her?” Tony finally managed to ask. 

Peter smiled and led Tony over to a bench leaning against the greenhouse where they could witness the final moments of the sun painting its colorful masterpiece across the horizon. The pair just sat for a few moments taking in the simple revelation before Peter started slowly. 

“She’s brilliant…the future mastermind of Stark Industries research and development no doubt.” Peter said with a sad smile. “She’s also sassy as hell, a trait Pepper swears she inherited entirely from you, but I will take at least 17% credit for bad influence.” Tony chuckled and rolled his eyes. “She is kind and brave and funny and everything you would want her to be.” 

Tony couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks. 

“I wish I could have met her.” He admitted brokenly. 

“Who says you can’t?” Peter responded mischievously.

“You know that’s a bad idea.” Tony countered. 

“Since when did Tony Stark care about the rules.” Peter said with a smirk. 

Damn right. 

The two men made their way down the stairs into the tiny little apartment. The inside looked different a little more practical and less eclectic but no less filled with warmth. Tony had been about to ask if May still lived here when Peter led him to a large bookcase. 

Tony quirked an eyebrow in question. 

“What can I say, I love a secret door.” Peter said with a smirk that suddenly reminded Tony how young he still was. Peter pulled on a hard back copy of The Hobit and the bookshelf gave way to a large metal door that definitely hadn’t been there the last time Tony had been in the space. 

Peter led him into what should have been the next-door neighbor’s apartment but was instead a huge workshop. Fragments of half-repaired suits scattered the worktop, schematics for new vehicles hung from the wall, and his old droid sat as centurion in the corner keeping faithful watch over the space with it’s trusty fire extinguisher in hand. 

 

Peter looked a little shy all of the sudden as if waiting for his approval. Tony clapped him on the back and looked at the kid with new eyes. He had carried on the legacy that Tony had feared might end with him. 

The mechanic. 

“Does that piece of crap still spray everything that moves?” Tony asked affectionately nodding at the droid in the corner earning a laugh from Peter. 

“He’s actually come in handy in the last few years. Morgan has a complete disregard for fire safety.”

“I do not!” The determined voice called out from an unknown location. Tony looked at Peter nervously and the kid clapped him on the back with a wink.

“You got this. You’re a natural. Trust me.” Peter said encouragingly.

Tony couldn’t imagine holding any more pride in his heart when a single word made his heart swell with so much love, he was afraid it might burst. 

“Daddy?” Tony turned to see his daughter elbow deep in a robot sitting cross legged on the floor under what he deduced was Peter’s desk and looking up at him as if he was the answer to every question she had ever asked. As if he were her idol, a role he had done nothing to deserve. 

Tony couldn’t think of anything to say so all he did was drop to his knees and open his arms praying she would understand. 

His knees had barely connected with the floor when a tiny little overall clad body collided with his own and squeezed him with all her might. 

Tony thought he had known what love was. He thought he had known what it was to be proud of something. He thought he had known what joy was. 

He hadn’t. 

He hadn’t known true love, or pride, or joy until he felt the frantic beat of his own daughter’s heart against his chest. 

“I love you so much.” He whispered into hair. 

“I love you!” His daughter responded immediately. 

“Peter dinner’s her-“ Michelle’s voice cut off at the sight of the ghost in the workshop and both she and Peter remained silent watching the reunion play out in front of them. 

“I told you he’d show up.” Michelle whispered to Peter. Tony peaked his eyes open and saw Peter plop down on a stool and then pull Michelle between his legs wrapping his arms around her waist. 

“I never doubted.” Peter said mischievously and kissed her cheek. Michelle tried to remain stiff and vindicated but ended up melting into him all the same. 

“Will you help me fix my engine?” His daughter asked looking up at him with hopeful eyes. 

“I would love to.” 

*****

In the end, Tony helped his daughter fix her robot and even managed to hide the tears of joy that fell from his eyes watching her chase it around the living room. The four of them ate dinner on the living room floor straight from the take out boxes and laughed and caught up as only people living on borrowed time can do. 

Despite her many determined declarations of not being tired, Morgan fell asleep in Tony’s lap clutching her newly repaired robot to her chest. Tony carried her to what had been Peter’s room and tucked her under the covers. 

He placed a feather light kiss on her forehead and watched her even breathing for a few minutes before forcing himself to leave. A tiny hand shot out beneath the covers

“You have to leave now, don’t you?” Morgan’s voice whispered into the night.

“I do.” Tony said honestly. He wouldn’t lie to his daughter. He couldn’t. He loved her too damn much to give her any false expectations. “I love you tons. Go to sleep.” 

“I love you 3,000.” She said before snuggling into her covers and falling immediately back to sleep. 

Tony was too speechless to respond but placed another kiss on her perfect freckle splattered cheek.

With one final look at Morgan Anthony Stark, Tony closed the door on his daughter and felt his heart break for what could’ve been the one hundredth time today. 

Michelle was cleaning up dinner when Tony came into the kitchen. Peter was no longer with her, a fact that struck Tony as odd as the two hadn’t spent more than 30 seconds not touching the entire time he had been there. 

Now that he had spent time with them, he knew there was something special about their relationship. They almost seemed to glow in each other’s presence vibrating with an energy that couldn’t be seen but was palpable to anyone who was near them. It put Michelle’s determination for finding Peter all those years ago into a new light.

She walked over and extended her hand; which Tony shook firmly. 

“We made a good team.” Michelle said with a smirk before hugging Tony so hard that he lost his breath for a moment. She must have learned how to hug from Peter. 

“He’s on the roof.” 

Tony made his way to the roof and found Peter sitting on the ledge under the canopy of stars in the clear night sky. 

Peter must have sensed his presence because Tony saw him wipe his face for tears before forcing a smile and turning toward him.

Peter opened his mouth to say something but seemed to visibly deflate before Tony’s eyes shaking his head. 

“Peter Parker at a loss for words. Someone call the police.” Tony jested but Peter’s answering smile didn’t make it all the way to his reddened eyes. 

“You going to marry MJ or are you going to be an idiot like me and wait too many years.” Tony asked seriously. 

Peter chuckled and then pulled a small box from the pocket of the jeans he had changed into. 

“The plan is in motion.” The kid said with a smirk as Tony admired the ring. It was an antique and unique in ways that could only have meant it was hand designed. 

“Damn. You really have gotten old.” Tony said before handing the tiny box back to him and hopping onto the ledge beside him. 

“Thank you.” Tony said sincerely as he threw his arm over the kid’s shoulders. “For looking after Morgan for me.”

Peter nodded. 

“She will never be alone, Tony, I promise you that.” Peter said while meeting his gaze with a fierce determination. It was the promise of a kid who knew what it was like to grow up without parents. It was the most important promise Peter could have given him. 

He hadn’t asked what had happened to him because in his heart he had already known. In some ways he had been hurtling toward this future since he put on the suit for the first time. 

A siren cut on down the street and Peter sighed. 

“Duty calls.” Peter tapped his watch twice and a completely new version of the Iron Spider suit peeled over his body like a second skin leaving only his face out. Both men stood and Tony admired the kids design for a few seconds before hugging him one last time. They pulled back and Peter extended his hand to Tony. 

Tony shook it firmly.

Peter was the future of the Avengers; Tony had known it from the first time he had sat across from him in that tiny bedroom downstairs where his daughter now slept, and he knew it now. Pride and love couldn’t even begin to capture the emotions he felt for the ki-…the man standing in front of him today. 

“Go get em’ Spider-Man.” With one final smirk, Peter hopped up on the ledge, gave Tony one more salute, and then back flipped off the roof.

Tony snorted. 

Show off.

A moment later he saw the silhouette of Spider-Man swinging down the Queens street to the rescue. Tony smiled.

The earth was in good hands. 

They didn’t need Iron Man anymore.

Kronos appeared beside him. 

“It is time, Mr. Stark.” He said solemnly. Kronos evidently sensed Tony’s impending fate as well.

“I’m ready.”


End file.
